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A Tight Situation

Giving Life

He Taught Me to Fly

The Window

The Greatest of These

Sometimes funny memories are the most special way to remember a beloved spouse. It helps take away some of the feeling of loss. Before he passed away, my husband loved to share this story with our friends. Now, it makes me smile to share this story with you.

Our neighbor's son was getting married in 1971 an at out-of-town Catholic church, and my husband and I were invited. We immediately rushed out to the local department store, and I bought a nice pink linen dress with a jacket and all those cute dyed-to-match accessories. The dress was a little tight, but I had a month before the June 30 wedding and I would lose a few pounds.

June 29 came and, or course, I had not lost a single pound; in fact, I had gained two. But, I figured a nice new girdle would cure everything. So on our way out of the city, we stopped once again at the store. I ran in and told the clerk I needed a size large panty girdle.

The clerk found the box with the described girdle, marked "LG," and asked if I would like to try it on. "Oh, no, a large will fit just right. I won't need to try it on."

The next morning was one of those ninety-degree days, so I waited to get dressed until about forty-five minutes before time to go. I popped open the girdle box only to find a new, $49.95 satin-paneled girdle in a size small. Since it was too late to find another one and the dress wouldn't fit right without a girdle, a fight broke out in the hotel room between me and the girdle. Have you ever tried to shake twenty pounds of potatoes into a five-pound sack? Finally, my husband, laughing like crazy, got hold of each side and shook me down into it. Once snug in my girdle, I put on all of the pink accessories, which did not go very well with my purple face, and I was ready to go.

All the way to the church my husband kept asking, "Are you all right? You look funny!" Then he would laugh. Men just do not appreciate what women go through to look good!

As we eased into the pew at the church, he asked if I could make it. Now, he was getting worried because I was breathing funny. I told him that I would be fine. Since we are Southern Baptist, and one of our wedding ceremonies takes thirty minutes or less, I assumed that this ceremony wouldn't last very long.

Seated in the pew with us were two little old ladies, who politely introduced themselves. Then, one of them said, "Isn't it just lovely, they are having a high mass."

"Oh, yes, lovely," I said, then turned to my husband and asked, "What is a high mass?" He shrugged his shoulders.

Unfortunately, I learned that this particular mass would last one hour, twenty-two minutes and eight-and-one-half seconds – the priest blessed everything except my girdle!

Over on the left side of the church, the bride's mother was crying and over on our side, I was crying. One of the little old ladies elbowed the other and said, "Oh, look, she's so touched."

They were right – I have never been so touched in my life! My ankles were swelling, my knees were blue and my thighs had lost all feeling. My husband was fanning me with my pink accessories, asking questions and trying to comfort me.

As soon as the priest pronounced them married, and the wedding party made their way back up the aisle to exit the church, I bolted into position as the fifth "bridesmaid" with my husband right behind me, still asking me questions: "Are you okay?" "Can I help?" "Can you breathe?"

"Please, just get me out of here!" I gasped.

We hop-danced to our car across the parking lot, and once there he opened the front and back passenger doors against the next car. Right there, before God, mankind and the wedding party, I squeezed my bruised and battered body out of that girdle! Then, to my horror just as I lifted my foot to pull the elastic torture chamber off my body once and for all, the dumb girdle catapulted out of my hand and landed under the car next to ours. My husband was laughing so hard, he couldn't even bend over to try and retrieve it, and I was too miserable to care. So we just drove away.

Over the years, he and I had often wondered what the parishioners of that fancy uptown church thought the next morning when they found an overly stretched $49.95 satin-paneled, size small girdle in their parking lot.
Reprinted by permission of Barbara D. Starkey © 1998 from Chicken Soup for the Couple's Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Barbara De Angelis, Mark Donnelly and Chrissy Donnelly.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary when my husband, Marvin, walked in with mail in hand. As he began sorting through the usual envelopes, he came to a nondescript envelope addressed to him. He opened it to find a generic card with a picturesque scene adorning the front. Opening the card, he read what must be the most potent words anyone has ever written him: "Thank you for saving my life."

Several years ago, Marvin and I were in church when someone made a plea to the congregation for bone marrow donors. A young boy in our community was dying and his only hope was to find an unrelated bone marrow donor. When we left church, Marvin suggested we go to the drive and register to be donors. And so we did.

Unfortunately, neither of us matched the young boy and he died soon after. However, years later Marvin received a letter stating that he was a possible match for someone else. Marvin called the telephone number, and so began our experience with the National Bone Marrow Donor Program.

Marvin completed several more blood tests to confirm that he was a match to this anonymous patient. Every time he was contacted it was to continue to the next step, until November 1998 when he was notified that he was a near perfect match and they scheduled an operation date.

This was an exciting time for our family as my husband, eleven-year-old daughter and I prepared to welcome our first son into this world – due date, November 25. The first date suggested to my husband for the operation was on our son's due date, so he declined and scheduled it for two weeks earlier. Marvin left, beeper in hand, along with my father to drive three hours to the out-of-state hospital. All of their expenses were covered, including the large steak dinner they treated themselves to.

I talked to Marvin on the phone after his surgery to assure him that I was not in labor and he could relax. Marvin described the experience and the royal treatment he was given. He felt fine, a little sore. He told me about the nurses that were brought to tears when they learned why Marvin was at the hospital and about the doctors that so diligently cared for him. He told me about the note he wrote to his recipient wishing him well and sending our prayers. Marvin recovered very quickly during the day and so they drove home that evening.

Since the donor and the recipient are kept anonymous, we don't know whose life Marvin helped to save. For all I know, it could be you or your husband, brother, father or son.

Our son was born on his due date. As we watch him grow and mature, we know that somewhere there is a man who began his life again and is continuing to grow and mature. Men sometimes ask women what it is like to give life. Now I just say, "Ask my husband."
Reprinted by permission of Kimberly White Kerl © 1999 from Chicken Soup for the Christian Family Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Patty Aubery and Nancy Mitchell Autio.

My dad grew up not far from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago. The projects were built long after Dad moved out, but the tough, teeming neighborhood of his youth is not so very different from the neighborhood of today. It's still a place for people trying to find a way out of poverty and danger. To finally see that apartment house was to finally know the deepest part of my father. It was to finally understand why we spent so much time at odds.

Dad and I were always passionate about our feelings – we're Italian, after all – and when I reached my teen years, our arguments really heated up. I can't remember a meal from those years that we didn't argue through. Politics, feminism, the war in Vietnam. Our biggest fight, however, was an ongoing one. It was about my chosen profession.

"People like us aren't writers!" Dad would shout.

"Maybe people like you aren't writers," I would shoot back, "but people like me are!"

What I said was truer than I knew.

I grew up in a nice house with a lawn, a dog and lots of room to stretch out in. My only responsibilities were to get good grades and stay out of major trouble. Dad spent his youth squeezed into a tenement, taking care of a widowed mother who spoke no English, helping to parent two younger siblings – and earning enough money in whatever way he could to keep the family going.

Dad's dream was to move up and out of the old neighborhood, and after he married, he did. He drew a curtain over his past, never speaking of his growing-up days. Not to anyone. Ever. It was a point of pride with him that he allowed no one to know what he had suffered through. But by not knowing Dad's past, I could never really know him, or what drove him to want so much security for me.

As I persisted in my career, despite all the rejections, Mom told me Dad read and reread everything I got published, although he never mentioned my work to me. Instead, he continually tried to steer me into a career he considered far safer – nursing or teaching or secretarial.

But in the last week of his life, as I sat by his bed, Dad opened up. It was as if he suddenly realized that soon it would be too late to let anyone know the truth. That's when he had me dig out a box of pictures he'd buried deep in the garage; that's when I finally saw what he and his brother and sister had looked like as children, and where they had lived. It was when I came face to face not only with Dad's old home, but with my father himself.

In those last days, Dad talked about everything. How it felt to carry buckets of coal up four flights of stairs and share one bathroom with five other families. He told me that he was always worried that his brother and sister wouldn't have enough to eat or that they wouldn't have enough warm clothes for winter, or that someone in the family would get sick and there wouldn't be enough money for medicine or doctors. He told me about the Saturdays he spent on a country club golf course, how wonderful the grass looked to him, and how he tried to get the men to use him as a caddie. After eighteen holes, if he was lucky, they'd toss him a quarter.

Dad told me how he'd wanted to protect me from poverty and want, so I'd never have to go through what he had. He told me how important it was to him that I have something to fall back on. And I told Dad that what I'd fallen back on all these years was him. I told him my hopes and dreams had been built on his strong shoulders. I told him the roots he'd given me ran deep, and when he apologized for trying to clip my wings, I told him that he was the one who'd given me the chance to fly. Dad smiled at that and tried to nod, but I wasn't sure if he'd really understood what I'd meant.

But on the afternoon of the last day of his life, as Mom and I sat holding his hands, he beckoned the two hospice volunteers close. "You know my daughter," he whispered with great effort. "Well, I just want you to know – she's a writer."

It was the proudest moment of my life.
Reprinted by permission of Cynthia Mercati © 1998, from A Second Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Jennifer Read Hawthorne and Marci Shimoff.

Kathy and I sit in her doctor's office, stunned. Dr. Hurley, ob-gyn, shuffles reports and test results on her desk while we absorb the impact of what she's just told us. Her words hang in the air like a thunderclap.

"Each of you has specific fertility issues. If it was just one we could possibly work around it. But both..."

She shrugs, averting her gaze.

"Short of extraordinary measures, there's no way you'll ever be able to conceive."

We look at each other, struggling to process the news. Once again she taps her pen on the papers, pointing to temperature graphs, percentage points, motility factors. We gaze at the figures. I squeeze Kathy's hand as she fights back tears.

We drive home in silence. Each of us wonders how this could be happening. We each feel personally responsible for the failure to have the family we'd always planned for. I remember growing up, throwing the baseball in the backyard with my dad, running across the room, jumping up into his arms after he returned from a business trip, how happy I felt to be his "biddy buddy." All the things I'll never get to share with a son of my own.

In the next few days, Kathy and I decide to get a second opinion. Expensive or not, it will be worth it if somehow, some way the numbers turn out different.

They don't. Short of extremely invasive, extremely expensive procedures, natural conception is still out of the question. Once again we're heartbroken.

We discuss other options. One couple we know had twins by a surrogate mother. Another had five in-vitro fertilizations before the last one finally took. The cost was astronomical, the procedure trying and far from romantic. We talk about the possibility of adoption while struggling with the very real chance we'll never hear the pitter patter of little feet after all.

Six weeks later we arrive at a joint decision. We'll find another doctor, one with a more positive, upbeat attitude. Maybe do some research, investigate alternative remedies if necessary. If it's God's will we shouldn't have children, then we'll both try to find the strength to accept that. If we're meant to have a family then we'll do whatever it takes to heal whatever needs to be healed and give it our best shot, then pray for a miracle.

Dr. Cornelia Daly, fertility specialist, walks around her mahogany desk and offers her hand to Kathy, then myself. It's firm, confident. Her smile is bright. She sits on the edge of the desk and listens to our story. She nods, holds eye contact, seems to really understand. On a shelf behind her desk I notice framed pictures of her own family. She and a happy husband smile in a variety of holiday poses with three adorable daughters.

She dismisses the reports we'd faxed with a wave of her hand and goes on to outline some less radical possibilities we hadn't thought of. She discusses diet, abstinence until ovulation, and the pros and cons of various fertility drugs. Her energy and optimism are catchy. We feel the first glimmer of hope we've had in months.

"My advice to you both is get more exercise, watch those foods that tend to slow you down: caffeine, sugar, alcohol. Look through magazines and cut out pictures of babies: bouncy, happy babies. Tape them on your bathroom mirror and your refrigerator. Go through baby books. Pick out names you'd like for your children, both girl and boy."

I feel my stomach muscles tense, my chest tighten, and I feel Kathy stiffen next to me. Can we really allow ourselves to hope that much? The words from a recent discussion ring in my mind.

"We'll do whatever it takes."

I take a deep breath. Whatever it takes. Okay then. I set my resolve and relax, listening.

"Oh, yes, go to the drugstore and ask the pharmacist for a pre-ovulation test. This measures your luteinizing hormonal level. The LH surges twenty-four to forty-eight hours before you're about to ovulate. That's your monthly window of opportunity. Once it opens," she shrugs and smiles, "just have fun."

Two and a half months later, Kathy wakes in the middle of the night with severe cramps. Immediately we think back to the cyst on her ovary that mysteriously appeared, then disappeared half a year earlier. Had it returned? Our minds worry overtime the rest of the night. If it doesn't clear up by next morning we're definitely on the way to the doctor's office if not the emergency room. Again we pray.

Kathy sits on the examination table, pale and drawn, waiting for Dr. Daly to enter the room. I hold her hand, whispering that everything will be fine. I struggle to make myself believe it as well. After all we've been through, she could actually wind up losing her ovary. What would that do to our already slim chances of conceiving? What if it's worse? What if it's cancer? I worry even more. Imagine how empty my life would be without my sweetheart. I fight not to let it show. I reach over and squeeze her hand.

The nurse takes the requisite urine sample. Fortunately there's a lab on the floor below. We can get the results today if we're willing to wait a little longer. We take deep breaths, try to think positive thoughts, put on strong faces for each other. It's hard.

We hear whispers outside the room. The nurse practitioner is briefing Dr. Daly on the lab results. We strain to hear.

She opens the door and steps inside. We search her face. Nothing. She reaches into the pocket of her lab coat and rests her gaze on Kathy. We lean forward to hear what she's about to say, fearing how this new news will change our lives.

"Congratulations. You're going to have a baby."

The doctor's face breaks into a wide grin. We look at her, then at each other. How could this be?

"The first test we ran was to rule out pregnancy and guess what? That's the prognosis. You're going to have a baby."

"But...but...," I stammer. "We only made love once during the window, a couple of weeks ago." I'm in shock.

She nods.

"Some women notice or complain of cramps once the zygote or pre-fetus attaches itself to the wall of the uterus. Other women hardly notice at all. Either way it's perfectly normal. The cells are attaching themselves to Kathy's womb."

We look at each other as the wonder of it sinks in. Then we smile, big beaming smiles. We hug. Finally we cry, big tears running down out cheeks.

Dr. Daly moves Kathy's paper gown aside, squeezes out a glob of colorless gel from a tube, smears it onto her belly and feels around with the ultrasound receiver. There it is on the screen, clear as day. The tiniest ball of cells about the size of a BB. It's nestled against the curve of her uterine wall, our future son or daughter.

Kathy reaches over and touches the black and white image. After all this time, all the worries, doubts and fear, it's true. We're going to have a baby. Miracles really do happen. We're going to be parents after all.

Reprinted by permission of C.J. Herrmann © 1999, from Chicken Soup for the Parent's Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Kimberley Kirberger and Raymond Aaron.

My day began on a decidedly sour note when I saw my six-year-old wrestling with a limb of my azalea bush. By the time I got outside, he'd broken it. "Can I take this to school today?" he asked.

With a wave of my hand, I sent him off. I turned my back so he wouldn't see the tears gathering in my eyes. I loved that azalea bush. I touched the broken limb as if to say silently, "I'm sorry."

I wished I could have said that to my husband earlier, but I'd been angry. The washing machine had leaked on my brand-new linoleum. If he'd just taken the time to fix it the night before when I asked him instead of playing checkers with Jonathan. What are his priorities anyway? I wondered. I was still mopping up the mess when Jonathan walked into the kitchen. "What's for breakfast, Mom?"

I opened the empty refrigerator. "Not cereal," I said, watching the sides of his mouth drop. "How about toast and jelly?" I smeared the toast with jelly and set it in front of him. Why was I so angry? I tossed my husband's dishes into the sudsy water.

It was days like this that made me want to quit. I just wanted to drive up to the mountains, hide in a cave, and never come out.

Somehow I managed to lug the wet clothes to the laundromat. I spent most of the day washing and drying clothes and thinking how love had disappeared from my life. Staring at the graffiti on the walls, I felt as wrung-out as the clothes left in the washers.

As I finished hanging up the last of my husband's shirts, I looked at the clock. 2:30. I was late. Jonathan's class let out at 2:15. I dumped the clothes in the back seat and hurriedly drove to the school.

I was out of breath by the time I knocked on the teacher's door and peered through the glass. With one finger, she motioned for me to wait. She said something to Jonathan and handed him and two other children crayons and a sheet of paper.

What now? I thought, as she rustled through the door and took me aside. "I want to talk to you about Jonathan," she said.

I prepared myself for the worst. Nothing would have surprised me.

"Did you know Jonathan brought flowers to school today?" she asked.

I nodded, thinking about my favorite bush and trying to hide the hurt in my eyes. I glanced at my son busily coloring a picture. His wavy hair was too long and flopped just beneath his brow. He brushed it away with the back of his hand. His eyes burst with blue as he admired his handiwork.

"Let me tell you about yesterday," the teacher insisted. "See that little girl?"

I watched the bright-eyed child laugh and point to a colorful picture taped to the wall. I nodded.

"Well, yesterday she was almost hysterical. Her mother and father are going through a nasty divorce. She told me she didn't want to live, she wished she could die. I watched that little girl bury her face in her hands and say loud enough for the class to hear, 'Nobody loves me.' I did all I could to console her, but it only seemed to make matters worse."

"I thought you wanted to talk to me about Jonathan," I said.

"I do," she said, touching the sleeve of my blouse. "Today your son walked straight over to that child. I watched him hand her some pretty pink flowers and whisper, 'I love you.'"

I felt my heart swell with pride for what my son had done. I smiled at the teacher. "Thank you," I said, reaching for Jonathan's hand, "you've made my day."

Later that evening, I began pulling weeds from around my lopsided azalea bush. As my mind wandered back to the love Jonathan showed the little girl, a biblical verse came to me: "...now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." While my son had put love into practice, I had only felt anger.

I heard the familiar squeak of my husband's brakes as he pulled into the drive. I snapped a small limb bristling with hot pink azaleas off the bush. I felt the seed of love that God planted in my family beginning to bloom once again in me. My husband's eyes widened in surprise as I handed him the flowers. "I love you," I said.
Reprinted by permission of Nanette Thorsen-Snipes © 1999, from Chicken Soup for the Christian Family Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Patty Aubery and Nancy Mitchell Autio.