A bumper sticker from:
http://www.cafepress.com/+catchy-phrases+bumper-stickers

My husband and I were talking about the sad fact that even when we’re warned ahead of time that something might be difficult, we often don’t really believe it until experiencing it ourselves. I guess that’s where another saying comes from, the one about experience being the best teacher.

Here are a few examples we came up with:

Parenting. Everyone says it’s the hardest job on earth, but until we realize just how much love is involved we don’t really know how hard it can be to watch someone we love go through life’s difficulties. (We also start with a lot of expectations, which all too often don’t turn out to be very accurate.)

Bullying. I think at some point almost all of us have been bullied in one form or another. If someone said to us: You’re going to be bullied, so this is how you prepare for it—starting with not giving the bully emotional satisfaction of seeing how much their negative attention can hurt. But when it happens, guess what? It hurts. Not long ago, I made the mistake of using a private driveway to turn my car around—a circular private drive, with two entrances from the street. Just as I was putting my car into reverse, the owner of the home returned, barreling into his driveway from the other direction and aiming his much larger vehicle right at me. If I hadn’t reversed and backed out quickly (so afraid he’d hit me I didn’t even look to see if someone was on the street behind me) I was convinced he’d plow right into me to get me off of his property. Thankfully no one was in the street and I got away, but even in my mid-fifties it reminded me of what it felt like to be bullied. Not fun, even when I assured myself his behavior was at best rude and at worst dangerous. Was my crime of using his driveway so bad? Perhaps it might have been had I run over his lawn, but I hadn’t. So now every time I pass that house I think to myself: “A bully lives there.”

Rejection/failure. This is a broad topic and in our family it takes on various faces. In science, my husband has learned when he’s creating a new project—an electric car, a robot, a new computer program demonstrating one law of physics or another—he’s learned it’s going to take failure first to come out with something that really works. Try one idea, then another and another and another until he gets the result he’s hoping for, even if the original idea need adjusting along the way.

With writing, rejection is similar. I’ve often told newer writers that the first book a person writes, or at least the first version of the first book, isn’t likely the one that sells to a traditional publisher. That’s because, as in science, writing is a learning process. We get better at it the more we do it, but all writers—new or experienced—must work at it to create a story that sparkles.

And yet with both kinds of rejection, neither is personal—for example, if a robot doesn’t work, is my husband failing, or is the robot rejecting its maker? Of course not. And when an editor rejects a proposal he or she isn’t rejecting the person or, often enough, even the talent. They’re making an impersonal business decision that this project isn’t right for their business. Not personal . . . and yet yowsa, it hurts!

This week marks the beginning of summer vacation around here. I already know the added time my handicapped son will be at home will bring new challenges, because we face this every summer. I want to keep him busy yet it’s difficult to interact with him. I also know I won’t get much work done, so frustration is part of the mix. I’m forewarned that time will slow down a little, and not always in a pleasant way.

At least now I know to be forewarned won’t make the frustration go away.

I know the one rule of our culture these days seems to be there are no rules, at least regarding what we wear, and I know it’s old-fashioned, but I still wait until after Memorial Day before donning white.

But of course Memorial Day is more than just a transition day for fashion or even a great day for sales. Memorial Day was first called Decoration Day, since after the Civil War widows and others who lost loved ones during the conflict would decorate the grave site of their fallen soldier. So the day grew out of what was already happening in the South and the North—a need to remember the sacrifices of so many men and their families.

I grew up during the Vietnam War, which was anything but popular, at least during the second half of the 60s. I recall “discussions” after dinner between my oldest brother and my dad when the two of them—equally opinionated and hardheaded—would argue about what was going on. My father, who served in the Navy before, during, and after World War II, knew what duty meant. My brother, on the other hand, was young and passionate and was against the war for all the reasons young people protested the ongoing conflict across the country.

I think those are the hardest disagreements, when both sides have reasons to claim being right. My dad had given a lot to this country, having volunteered for service when he was just 17. He did get to see much of the world, which was why he joined the Navy in the first place. But not long after Pearl Harbor was attacked, he was sent to help defend the Philippines. A defense he and thousands of soldiers lost when Japan invaded and conquered the entire area. My dad was taken in a second wave of the death march, then held prisoner for almost three and a half years. He survived more than I can imagine, but sometimes remembering all he endured still amazes me.

In the 60s, when my brother didn’t like the idea of being drafted into a war to protect democracy in some far, far away place, my dad only saw the idea of resisting the draft as resisting duty—a duty that had demanded several years of my father’s life, filled with hard work, a starvation diet, abominable medical testing, and physical and mental abuse most of us never know (thank God!). He even survived a friendly-fire bombing when Allied forces targeted a nearby ammunition plant and ended up hitting their camp instead. He may not have gone into the Navy knowing what duty meant, but he learned along the way just how much might be demanded—which was why he couldn’t accept that my brother didn’t want to answer the call if his country needed him. My brother ended up going into the National Guard, a compromise of sorts, and eventually their arguments subsided.

So as I consider wearing the white items in my closet today, memories of my dad come to mind. I can’t help but thank God again for allowing me to be his daughter.

Image from Bing Free Images as seen on http://jackmalcolm.com/blog/2011/09/how-to-present-numbers/

I must confess these are numbers that meant nothing to me until my husband recounted how he could communicate a single number to a fellow teacher and this other teacher will know exactly what my husband is referring to. So if he says: “42.” the other teacher will fire back: “Jackie Robinson’s uniform number.” (The player who broke through the color barrier to become the first African American to play professional baseball.)

Evidently I’m in the minority not knowing the meaning behind these numbers, because they both warranted enough interest to have movies made about them. “61*” follows the race between Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris as both were hitting so well in 1961 that either one of them could have broken Babe Ruth’s record of 60 home runs in a single season. Sounds like enough emotion and competition to be fodder for any compelling story—except it really happened. Roger Maris was the one to go down in history with that number, hitting 61 home runs that year.

What is it about baseball that brings new meaning to statistics? It’s probably one of the happier ways to use numbers, something I never would have dreamed possible while sitting in any kind of math class.

Numbers can be fascinating when associated with intriguing coincidences. Did you notice the year, ’61, was the year the home run record was broken with the same number of home runs? Still, there aren’t many numbers that mean very much to me. Perhaps 3 for the trinity, and for the number of days before Jesus rose from the dead. Sixty-five is another number with meaning for me. I chose to use that number in my email address, since it’s the number of CCG repeats I inherited that makes me a carrier for Fragile X Syndrome. Sixty-five is a relatively low number for a carrier, but it’s nonetheless unstable because that repeat number jumped to something uncountable in my son. So it’s an important number, a number that represents a change in my life, but unlike fun baseball statistics, it’s not a happy number.

Numbers are far more fascinating to people like my husband, whose idea of a refreshing mental exercise is to work on a Physics problem that demands several sheets of paper. Can you imagine? I do understand the idea of numbers being reliable and concrete. There is something to be said for absolutes, and math is a prime example for that. Your math problems are absolutely right . . . or wrong . . . and there’s comfort in knowing you can be absolutely right!

Deep down, if I had a choice, perhaps I might prefer being a mathematician rather than a writer. Wait a minute . . . let me think about that. The security of numbers versus the exploration of endless story worlds. Hmmm . . . On second thought . . .

On a completely different note (or should I say number) I also wanted to mention that next week (May 17th through May 19th) I’ll be involved in another very fun Scavenger Hunt! You may recall that I participated in one last year with Bees In The Butterfly Garden, and it was so successful I’m happy to take part in one with All In Good Time. So look for details starting Friday, May 17th, on how you can enter to win some great prizes, including 31 wonderful new books from various Christian writers and an iPad Mini! I’ll post another reminder next week, but mark your calendars so you won’t miss it!