superheroes

dear rory,

sometimes, me and a couple Mexicans team up to save the world.

working at a BBQ smokehouse restaurant… it means I show up, tie my hair in a knot, don an apron, shove my disobedient bangs into my viser, clock-in, and slap on a smile.

actually, most of the time, the smile just appears naturally. no slap needed. sometimes I wish it would disappear. it’s not recommended that us employees laugh at customers. but sometimes I can’t help it.

like the time an older gentleman slowly inched his car up to the drive thru, rolled down his window and said with a crinkly-eyed smile on his Santa Claus face, “well, hello there miss smiley! and what grade are you in?”
or the time I had a man in a purple jumpsuit struggle his way back up to the counter and stand before me mid-fake-coughing fit.

yes, it was fake. I could tell.

he stood there gasping and hacking and turning red from his efforts at pretend coughing. so I stood there and politely watched him choke. finally he pulled out some money and shoved it in my hand. “that… *fake cough*… BBQ sauce you gave me… *fake cough. cough.*… it was hot!!!” I asked him which sauce he had ordered. he paused and thought. “well… uh… hot.”

he forgot to cough.

“oh, I’m sorry, sir,” I said with the money still lying there limply in my hand. mentally I added, “how could I forget to warn you that the hot sauce was hot?”

now that his fake cough was momentarily healed and I could hear his voice, I noticed that it matched his purple jumpsuit… strange. “it’s all right. it’s all right,” he said with a purple jumpsuit smile, “but I heard that dairy is good for a cough… *relapses into pretend coughing again*… so I’d like to order a brownie.”

brownie delivered and eaten in front of me. purple jumpsuit man miraculously healed of his cough. Dr. Renee had done it again.

***

but not everyone who comes into the restaurant lights up my day just because they are weird.

as strange as this sounds, I am coming to a conclusion in life: I think angels appear to humans as BBQ-eating, older, black gentlemen.
you heard me right.

no, I am not crazy. (hey, they haven’t proven it yet anyways…)

a few weeks ago, I was feeling impatient. about everything. I was feeling like I’m at a standstill in life. I don’t know about college, I don’t know about work, I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, I don’t know anything. I’m just an eighteen-year-old girl with big dreams (that sounds so Disney. yuck.) in a big world with lots of big people doing big things about their big ideas and yeah. too many big thoughts for one little person like me.

because there I was. stuck at work. sweaty. not having a particularly sparkling sort of day. I was feeling impatient because I want certain things to happen in my life, but I don’t know when they will or how they will.

basically, if we had scrubbed the makeup off my pretend mood that day, you would have seen a big ugly “I WANT WHAT I WANT NOW” pimple glaring angry red at you.

but with my mask on, I trudged out into the dining room to see if anyone needed anything. and that’s when I saw my angel.

he was sitting alone at a booth looking out the window.

“Sir,” I said like the meek little person I was pretending to be, “Can I clear your dishes for you?”

he turned and looked at me with his grave, old eyes and replied with a “thank you, yes”.

“how was everything tonight?” I asked.

as I spoke, it was as if I had dropped a light into the deep wells of his midnight eyes… I watched them sparkle brighter as my lantern of words fell from my mouth.

“young lady,” he said smiling, “have you ever seen a plate licked so clean?” I watched his face and forgot to look at the plate BEFORE I shook my head in agreement. I couldn’t look away from him. he was so interesting. the corners of his mouth turned up and created a sprinkling of wrinkles on weathered face. “I bet it’s nice working around all this delicious food,” he continued.

I mentally shook my brain awake and managed to say, “yes, but unfortunately I can’t eat as I work… so it’s sort of torturous.”

“well,” and he grabbed his hat as he spoke, “you know what they say…”

no, I didn’t know what they said. who are “they” and what do they “say” I wanted to know!? I was afraid he wouldn’t finish. he stood up slowly. I continued to stare.

“… they say that the good things in life are worth waiting for.”

and with that he left me standing there lost in thought. I had needed to hear that. to be reminded that waiting isn’t a bad thing. especially when I’m waiting on God. who is the author of good things.

when I looked up again, he was at the door. he walked out. I haven’t seen him since. kind of strange considering it was plate-licking good food…

***
but I guess I should explain now how me and my fellow Mexican co-workers save the world.

last week, I was working front cash-register. it was around three in the afternoon and the restaurant was dead. not a sign of intelligent life anywhere. because, of course, me and Reyes were not being very intelligent as we waited for the dinner rush to arrive. he’s shorter than me (as most Mexicans and, in fact, as most of the human race, are) and so we were goofing off by walking around the restaurant like midgets and giants. for once, I let him be the giant, and I got to be the midget. he likes it when I’m the midget. he stands on his tip-toes and towers over me and bosses me around.

it’s silly, but whatever.

as we were goofing off, a family walked into the restaurant. a husband and wife, their two kids, and a very old looking couple… probably the grandparents or great-grandparents. I stood up straight and walked casually back to the register awaiting their orders.

they took a long time looking at the menu. longer than usual. so I silently played a game called, “evaluate these total strangers as fast as I can”. my first evaluation led to several beliefs: one, they did not eat out very often. two, they weren’t very well-off. three, they were stressed. and four, the little four-year-old girl with big glasses and her five-year-old brother were the cutest little kids I had seen in a long time.

finally, they ordered. I rang up their bill. it was high. the grandparents didn’t offer to pay. they stood there stonily.

the mom reached into her purse, pulled out a card, and handed it to me. “we’ll put $25 on here and use another card for the rest.” I smiled at her tired face and nodded.

the card was declined. she looked flustered and her husband looked concerned as he took the card back from me. “here, just use this one,” she said shoving another card into my hands. the grandparents looked gloomily on. but the kids were smiling as they waited for their food. this card worked and I handed it back to the lady and tried to catch her eye as I handed her the receipt. she was too busy listening to her husband talk about the declined card.

Reyes and I got the food ready, and then he went in the back. I stayed up front and pretended to clean already clean counters as I watched this family.

after a bit, I worked up the courage to stroll out there. “how was everything today?” my voice automatically said. they all agreed it had been very good, and a bunch of empty plates blinked their assent back at me.

“look, I ate all of my food!!!!” the little girl said to me. her big eyes watched me through her strong lenses. There wasn’t a scrap of food left on her plate. the boy called my attention to his empty plate too and I saw the mom smile at her kids. I could tell this had been a special treat to them. all of them.

“I’ll be right back to clear your plates,” I said more to myself than to them as I walked away. my heart was racing and I marched straight into the office where Reyes was spinning in his chair talking to one of the dish washing guys.

“Reyes, I need a cookie.” I said it before I had even thought about it.

“a cookie, honey?”

“Yeah, one of those really big ones. I saw them in the fridge. I’ll pay for it later.”

“why do you need a cookie?”

“for those little kids,” and I gushed as much of the story to him as I could in five seconds.

“all right,” he said. he was smiling. he was curious. he probably thought I was crazy. but he was interested. and behind his smile, there was a question.

I walked back out to the table. the stony grandparents. the bubbling kids. the worn parents. I smiled at them all. bending down closer to the mom, I asked, “do you mind if I bring out a cookie for the kids to share? the cookies are really big, and I thought they might enjoy sharing one.”

she looked surprised. then her surprise metamorphosed into a grin. when she smiled like that, she lost about ten years. “what is it?” the husband asked.

“she wants to bring the kids a cookie.”

“a cookie!!!!?” the two little ones cried. “can we mom?” she laughed and said that would be fine.

so I floated back to the kitchen and grabbed the biggest cookie I could find and carried it back out to the kids as if it had been the Superbowl trophy. they all thanked me again and again. the kids. the parents. even the grandparents.

I felt a little silly again as I walked away. what was a cookie?

but it struck me.

a cookie is a smile. and that family was in need of a smile.

as I got ready to leave work, I called Reyes over. “I still need to pay for that cookie,” I explained. he smiled again with that question behind it.

“They needed that cookie.”

he gave me the total. I think he charged less than he should have. but as I dug around in my wallet, I couldn’t find any dollar bills. “I think I’m going to have to use my card.”

just then, one of the other guys I work with walked over. he had seen me give the cookie to those kids. and he had been watching me try to find the money to pay for it. he had the same questioning smile that Reyes had. he gently pushed me away from the register and pulled out his own money. “I got it,” he said to me.

I walked out to my car that day and remembered that just because there is a lot of bad in the world, doesn’t mean that there can’t be a lot of good. and sometimes, it’s the super tiny, almost embarrassingly insignificant things that can brighten someone’s day.

I think I’ll open a cookie stand. it’ll only cost you a smile.

***

well, this letter was crazy long. congrats if you made it to the end.

until next time,

muffin

the moving days

dear muffin,


today saw the start of real packing. school room = bomb scene. we went through all our books & sorted them into keep, throw away, give away, & sell piles. emphasis on piles. everywhere. 

also got to thumb through some old notebooks, which was simultaneously horrifying & hilarious. really, I don't think any kid went through so many handwriting transformations as this one. there were some sketchbooks, too, & "Queen Kristen and princessess" was a repeated theme. not sure whether the "princessess" were supposed to be Queen Kristen's daughters, friends, slaves, or papparazzi... but they were all at least two heads shorter than the Queen herself. humility at its best.

it's strange going through old schoolbooks. it throws me right back into that chair, pencil in hand, with the schoolroom lights burning on my neck while I scribble my way through workbooks. doesn't seem like that long ago, but so much has changed. & it's changing again.

it's not that I dislike the new place. but it's just that: new. at least, as new as a 40-year-old house can be. the stairs creak unfamiliarly, like they do at a new family's home when we go for dinner and ask polite questions in an effort to get to know each other. who are you? what is your story? where did you grow up?

I grew up on 731 New Mexico Court, in the house that used to be orange. the house with the pine tree out front that hosted mourning doves every spring until we cut the tree down. somewhere in the front yard is buried a pile of my eight-year-old treasures: pretty pieces of broken glass & small toys sacrificed for a pirate's cause. in the back yard was buried a time capsule that my brother & I opened only two days later, after a summer rainstorm washed away its cover.

I've lived here since I was 5 years old, and anything prior is a mere scrap of memory, a snapshot image of a yard filled with sun or a porch looking out onto a street I can't quite picture.

this town is my town.

***

leather burns against my skin as I slide into the back seat of the car. my brother buckles, revs the engine, & turns the radio up to blasting. country station. I know the lyrics by heart. my seatbelt clicks into place, the windows roll down, & we back over the curb at the end of our driveway. Mr. Thomas waves before disappearing into his garage next door. my brother turns the car 360 & punches the gas.

sun in my eyes, wind in my hand as I trace waves out my window. the town slips between my fingers; I see my siblings laughing in the front seat, noiseless as the whole car throbs with bass from the radio. I can feel the song pulse through my ribcage. my sister's cheeks are pulled tight with laughter & judging by my brother's facial expression, he's singing falsetto right along with Taylor Swift.

scenes flick by my window. the Chinese lady walks her little black dog. the older gentleman sits in his lawn chair, watches traffic. the marquee displays time & temperature. my brother instinctively squeezes the brakes as we pass the police station, then picks up speed once clear of dutiful enforcement radars.

this town is my town.

sometimes I feel as if we owned it, my siblings & I; as we walk through the parking lot & up to the sliding doors of Food4Less, I momentarily have the irrational feeling that we could take on the world. the cashier recognizes us with a laugh; since we can be found roaming the aisles at least three times per week, a few employees have begun to remember us. she asks us how we're doing, & we ask her how the cancer treatment is going.

we're back in the car, headed home with groceries in hand. my brother suddenly turns down the radio and says quietly, "you know, it's strange. this move is going to be the end of an era. 'the Elk Grove house,' we'll call it. 'remember when we lived in the Elk Grove house?'" for a moment we stare out the windows, seeing nothing. then the radio climbs back to a normal volume, and we drive home in silence. I know the song, but don't feel like singing anymore.

the Elk Grove house. remember when...?

***

change. it takes hold of the rug beneath our feet & jerks it sharply. it puts normal in a blender, turns it up on high, & hands us a fresh plate of the unfamiliar. someday this change will be the new normal, & I will know those creaking stairs in Woodstock as well as I once knew the ones in "the Elk Grove house." someone else will move into the house on the cul-de-sac, and they will begin the task of memorizing the pattern of air-conditioning cycles. they will soon learn that if you step on the right side of the 1st, 3rd, and 5th basement stairs, no creak will give away your midnight presence after a sibling movie night.

right now I see four blank walls & an empty floor, windows overlooking a foreign yard full of foreign Woodstock... but someday I will look & see my bedroom. I will glance over my shoulder & revisit the days leading up to the moment: the boxes, the cleaning, the packing. each memory will follow on the heels of another, forming an unbroken line between then & now.

I'm going to miss all this. I'm going to miss it like crazy. I'll miss the Food4Less, the goofy green-and-orange clock tower my town built to copy Schaumburg's, the way a police car always lurks behind the school on Biesterfield road. I'll miss being able to run over to starbucks with you at a moment's notice.

but that's not really it. it's not the town; it's these times I'm going to miss. because I know that life is changing fast, that it has been for a while now. "the Elk Grove house" will forever be home to some of my favorite memories.

tonight I sat on our green basement couch, savoring the familiar touch of knobbly fabric, and considered some of the changes in my life up to this point. I remember hating the idea of visiting a new church; then the pain of being torn away once we'd become attached to it. I remember the uncertainty of starting our own little church; now I wouldn't trade it. I'm old enough to understand that God works things out for the best, & young enough to kick and scream anyway.

promise me you'll come fill up the new house with new memories? it's a blank slate, ready to be scribbled on. with some good friends to help, it shouldn't take long to transform the newly-painted walls. I claim the yellow crayon.

we can open the new chapter together.

always,

rory

northbound

to whom it may concern:

rory & muffin will soon be in a car somewhere between here and there. "there" being, specifically, michigan. this may or may not involve a road trip, some pop-tarts, OneDirection, aviators, a whole lot of bags, a big adventure, & two very excited girls. depending on the cooperation of various electronic devices & the magical substance called "connection," there may also be occasional video updates posted here. so stay tuned and hope for the best (as far as the devices are concerned). 

in the meantime, hold down the fort for us. prayers for safe travel would be appreciated. (even though rory & muffin are obviously seasoned veterans at solo car trips. pshhh. don't tell her I said it, but rory has a tenuous relationship with gas stations.) in addition, we hope to be a blessing to the camp families we meet & work with. 

we promise to come back tan & full of stories. at least, muffin will be tan. rory prefers to sport the colors of the Polish, Danish, & Austrian flags, in keeping with her ancestry.

don't have too much fun in our absence.

we'll miss you all.

rory out.

sunshine in february

oh hey rory,

this eighteenth of February was a sparkling sort of day. it was sunny. it was warm-ish. my belly was quieted with the yummy contributions of pizza and rice-krispy squares and lattes and popcorn and grilled potatoes. the baby sister completed two laps in Mario Kart all by herself, I got to see my friends, dad helped me come up with the plot for a new story, and strawberry icecream is now waiting for me in the freezer.

at the moment, the dog is sleeping near my feet, hymns are vibrating off my eardrums via Pandora, mismatched fuzzy socks are warming my toes, and I am sitting on the couch with my hair piled into a knot on top of my head feeling the necessity to organize my thoughts into words.

today had the feeling of summer about it.

there was a giddiness in the air that made me want to skip around the block singing a song at the top of my lungs…

just kidding. that would be weird.

but you know what I mean. today was happy. it was like having July in February.

when I woke up this morning and suggested that after going to Starbucks we play Mario Kart and go see a movie at the dollar theater, lauren looked at me strangely and asked what was up.

(as if I’m not usually more fun than a barrel of monkeys… pft.)

well… I guess I *have* been sort of out of it lately. you see, two weeks ago, I had something strange happen to me. I lost most of my vision in my left eye, lost feeling in my right arm, and was so weak I could barely stand. I couldn’t remember most of what had happened that day or what I had said or done. and I was tired. oh so tired. mom was really worried about me and offered to take me to the hospital, but I said I would rather just go to bed.

I laid in bed for awhile thinking that maybe I was going to die. maybe this was the end. maybe eighteen trips around the sun was all the time I had been allotted in this life. and the weirdest part of it all was that I didn’t care. eighteen years seemed long enough. in fact, living for eighteen years had been exhausting. draining really. I was ready to close my eyes and sleep forever.

instead, I slept basically from Sunday night until Tuesday morning.

and since then, I have still been tired and weak and my mind has felt foggy, but my heart is beating and my brain is functioning and I’m ready for more adventures in life. I’m ready to travel many more miles with this planet I live on.

today was the first day I woke up and really felt like my mind was a bit clearer. I think the sun helped. the brightness made wanted to curl up in front of the window and lay still enough to feel my skin absorb the light. and I think I would have done that, but for the fact that my mind, which had been mostly idle for two weeks, was ready to do something besides math.

it’s funny how being sick can give you a new appreciation of life. how the seemingly small things suddenly feel so significant. how every memory begins to glow.

I had a lot of time to think these past two weeks. I went through a lot of my past and realized how much I have to be grateful for… from the big things: family, friends, church, home, food, clothes, etc… to the small things: every drop of rain, every pink-clouded sunset, every smiling face, every loving glance, every warm touch, every kind word, etc.

I realized how my existence has mostly been written with happy sounding chapter titles. sure, my life hasn’t been perfect. like any story, there have been sad parts. there have been parts that I wish I could’ve skipped over or seen coming. and I know that there will be chapters in the future that may not be easy reading. they may be tedious or boring or depressing or scary.

I know there will come a time when this chapter I’m living in will end. when the days of waking up to having my whole family under one roof will be over. I might not see the corner of my dad’s mouth tilt up in an ornery smile as he walks through the door with some surprise for all of us. I might not smell my mom’s perfume as I bury my head in her shoulder and spill out my heart. I might not get to stay up chatting for hours with my middle sister. I might not get to feel the three-year-old's head on my chest as she settles into a deep sleep.

someday, church fellowship meal might not mean the same thing it does now. it might not mean having the people I love most all sitting within a close proximity, laughing at pointless jokes and sarcasm, having one of the boys pick up a Frisbee and call everyone out to play. it might not mean all of us running through the green grass of the huge soccer field barefoot, feeling like nothing in the world could stop us from having a grand time. it might not mean cameras and shining eyes and ready smiles and funny stories and bright hopes.

but despite all of this, despite past memories both good and bad, despite future events both good and bad, one thing I do know is this: God is reigning. He is Sovereign. He is in control. He has a plan for my life and for the lives of those around me.

God is always right there. in every shining moment. in every dark time.

and I know that the sun is always shining. in every clear, blue sky. behind every dark, intimidating cloud.

am I happy to be alive? why yes. yes, I am.

love,
muffin

savoring the snow

dearest rory,

hi.

what's up?

if you say 'not much', then I think you are mistaken. just take a walk outside and look up at the dark clouds overhead. a trillion white frozen water droplets floating down from the sky will land on your nose and prove you wrong.

lots is up. and lots is falling down.

snow is wonderful, isn't it?

I first remember seeing snow back when I was four. we lived in Hanover Park at the time. in a duplex that we shared with a man named Larry who was almost seven feet tall and never wore a shirt. the garbage hill was just across the street. so was our neighbor who owned an iguana. but that's besides the point.

that winter we had a huge snowstorm. my sidewalk transformed itself into a tunnel and I still remember the feeling of walking through it, dragging my sled behind me as I hurried towards the garbage hill. yeah... the garbage hill doubled as a sledding paradise.

I don't remember much else about that sledding trip or winter, but I remember loving the snow.

doing school was difficult yesterday. not because the work was hard, but because there was a swirling world of whiteness blowing past my window. several times I realized that I had let my eyes drift from my math book to our front pine tree, watching the snowflakes build up on the evergreen branches. I guess the accumulating snowflakes were more interesting than the compound interest rates failing to accumulate on my notebook paper.

I was thinking about how cool it is that such small things like snowflakes can change the world. they make the winter grass go from brown to bright white. they cover even the dirtiest spots and make them clean.

snow always reminds me of Christ.

Jesus is holy. He is pleasing in the sight of God. when He came to earth and was killed, He took our sins upon Himself, upon the cross, and redeemed us, His children. and He didn't stay dead, but He defeated death and gave us the hope of eternal life. He wiped our accounts clean so that when we stand before God, He doesn't see our filth- He sees Christ's blood- He sees perfection.

one Man's sacrifice changed the world. one Man's sacrifice is slowly coloring our grungy world white.

Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

yesterday I was confined to watching and dreaming about that beautiful world from a window, but today my friends and I went on an adventure and rearranged several million of those snowflakes.

all of us arrayed ourselves in warm sweatshirts, colorful hats, flowing scarves, and poofy snowpants, climbed to the top of a hill, and plowed new courses in the snow as we screamed and laughed and tumbled through it. our sleds carved paths as we sailed down the hill, sending snow in every direction- including backwards into our pink faces.

someone had the bright idea to build human ramps that would launch our sleds into the sky and hopefully set us gently on the ground again. the guys lined up and braced themselves while a sled packed with girls raced towards them. sounds smart, right?

let's just say the ramp failed.

oh we sailed through the air, all right. but we were no longer on our sleds. those were imbedded into the sides of the guys. and I wouldn't really say we had a smooth landing- but we did have a lot of laughs as we rolled through fluffy whiteness.

in the end, our noses got a little chilled, our knees got a little wet, and our hair got a little attacked by our hats. but we had a blast.

and afterwards we went to Wendy's where my cheesy potato and medium coke commited suicide by jumping off the tray and exploding on the floor.

it was humiliating. but I was grateful for friends who could laugh with me.

I'm glad for the snow. for the memories I have surrounding it. for the way it reminds me of Christ's love for us. for the friends I have to play with in it.

what's your favorite snow memory?

your friend,

muffin