“Let’s go check out a few of these,” he announced, with a sly smile. “They’re labs. You said you wanted a lab again.”
One place we went to had the whole slam-damn-fam there: the momma, the daddy, and about eight fur balls scampering around—at this point all too young to leave the litter. The parents were attentive and patient, especially to one pesky pup that rolled and jumped and nipped more than the others.
“That’s your girl,” John said. “She’s got energy like you.”
I paid and arranged for a pick-up in Austin in a week. “Honey-Pooh” I called her, using part of John’s last name, even though Shawn, now living with us, tagged her Pookie as soon as she arrived home.
I had left Pookie, now almost four years old, in Jackson as I drove straight through to Houston, only making stops when absolutely necessary. John died during my drive. The mortuary had picked him up. John’s parents and Sidney were already making plans for a funeral a few days out. Calls were being made and arrangements confirmed; this was not an unexpected death. That didn’t make it any less difficult.
Now, on the evening of John’s death, I looked in his beloved’s eyes and beheld yet another man with a huge heart. Sidney talked faster than anyone I had ever heard and flailed his hands about as a result of growing up with two deaf parents, but his communication was steeped in kindness and compassion. John had once told me to just say, “Uh-huh, uh-huh,” when Sidney’s words clipped by, and act like I could understand him even when I couldn’t. “That’s what I do,” John joked.
John’s parents and Sidney organized a beautiful service. John had asked me to deliver a eulogy, along with two others. When I walked up front and looked out at all those who had known and loved John, I couldn’t find my voice. I had something prepared, but how does one encapsulate a long friendship, a life energy like John’s, in a few minutes? As I looked up to begin, three people walked in from the back—Dave, whom I hadn’t seen for many years, and two other people from our high school. I was shocked, pretty sure that Dave had not seen John in all the years John had lived with AIDS, despite the strong friendship they once had. With a trembling voice, I managed to deliver my eulogy.
After the service, and after John’s dad insisted on some photos of a few of us in front of the open casket—something I couldn’t quite fathom but decided it was one way John was getting the last laugh—we all headed back to Sidney and John’s home. My close friend and mentor Sister Antoinette, who also lived in Houston, had offered to help with serving the guests. Antoinette knew Dave from the days of our marriage when I had first started teaching in the Catholic school where she was principal, and she warmly greeted him. Dave asked if he and I could chat on the front porch a bit, but I was reluctant to leave the kitchen where Antoinette and I were washing dishes and refilling serving trays.
“Go ahead, Patty,” Sister Antoinette insisted. “I can handle things in here.” The blend of Antoinette’s soft voice and smile are comforting to anyone in her presence and were helping right now as much as her busy hands.
I dried my hands on a towel and walked to the porch. Dave was sitting in the swing. I thought of the swing we had sat in together on my front porch while dating during high school. I smiled at this man with whom I had spent so many years, and now never saw at all.
“God, your breasts look good,” Dave said.
“Geez, Dave. Lift your eyes, would you?” My breath collapsed in disappointment, and I felt myself sink heavily into the swing. “Is that what I came out here for? I thought we were going to talk about John or share what’s going on in our lives.”
“Sorry, it’s just, I saw your breasts and remembered how beautiful they are.”
“Those times are long past, and you won’t be seeing them again. Please, let’s talk about something else.”
We shared a bit about our lives; he talked about his children and work, and I mentioned planning a trip to Europe with a bunch of teenage students. I didn’t mention that I was considering leaving my husband and moving to Houston, feeling like my eleventh move since he and I divorced would sound like a bucketful compared to his supposed stable married life with kids and a successful company.
I thought about John, probably already across that bridge he had told me about, clicking his heels with a gleam in his eyes and that mischievous grin he often wore. “Dave will always be Dave, Patty,” I could hear John saying. “But you, you’re bound to figure things out and do the best you can. I’ll be waiting to hear all about it on Wednesday nights, okay?”
GOTTA HAVE A DREAM
1993-94 (ages 40-41)—Jackson, Mississippi
You gotta have a dream if you wanna have a dream to come true.11 I often share these words with my students. Maybe I’m repeating this mantra so I’ll hear it myself, as thoughts of leaving Bill and getting my master’s degree are nagging me after this latest move to Jackson for another of Bill’s jobs. We left our well-loved Spicewood home with a well-worked garden and the successful recruiting work I loved so we could all move to Mississippi, a place I never in my life imagined I’d be living. It felt important that Bill, Shawn, and I stay together until Shawn finishes high school. Bill reveals little of his dreams to me and shows slight curiosity about mine. Other than discussing his ex’s latest call or checking in with how Shawn is doing, we share little.
I’ve been in a pile of hurt wishin’ to have a dream come true.
One afternoon when I cast out this dream bait, my French II class is restless. It’s a humid afternoon in Jackson, and the silly dialogue from the textbook about packing up and heading out somewhere prompts Keisha to propose we travel to Europe as a class, more than likely as a tactic to steer us off this boring lesson’s course. Yeah, right, I think. Last thing I would do if I were going to take another trip to Europe is haul a bunch of rowdy teenagers with me.
“I’m serious, Ms. Eagle,” Keisha continues, “what if we planned a trip for next year and went where we could really speak French? Nobody in my family has ever been to Europe.”
A chorus of “yeahs” supports Keisha’s proposal. I’m already unplugging the CD player and locking it in my closet. This is the last class of the day, and I’m following the inner city public school routine of securing all teaching supplies I might want to ever see again. I want everything I need for a day of teaching to greet me here tomorrow in this sunny classroom with its fabulous wall of windows.
“I could barely get y’all to speak French with our Haitian students when the refugee organization enrolled them here at school,” I counter. Renel, one of those refugees who went to a private school in Port au Prince and speaks immaculate, formal French, nods his head and smiles.
“Madame Eagle,” Renel offers, “my parents were preparing me for university studies in France. I would love to fulfill their dream and travel to French-speaking Europe.”
Renel was hiding in a closet when the anti-government soldiers burst into his elite family’s Haitian home, murdering his parents and sister. After the soldiers left, he emerged to discover the carnage, running from his home and hiding in nearby woods for weeks before finally blending in with other refugees and traversing an ocean to come to the United States. Refugee workers told me Renel was silent for months until they finally coaxed his story out in routine attempts to gather background information, as precious few of the refugees had any identity documents with them. Now Renel pals around with the two other Haitians who speak a rough French-Creole and can barely write, the three of them helping each other out as they settle into life on American soil, all of us unaware at this point how the lack of birth certificates or other identifying documents will impede everything they ever hope to do here.
Looking up and noticing Renel’s earnest look, I respond to the entire group. “Well, if you wanted to take a trip like that, what would you need to do?”
The class jumps in and suggests researching where they could go, what it would cost, and then having a parent meeting. The bell is about to ring so I suggest they get on it,
doubtful they will really put their heads together and return with necessary information the next day. I’m ready to go home, exhausted to the bone from another day of teaching full classes here at this all-black high school where I was involuntarily moved during a restructuring the previous year. Although sorely disappointed to be directed to leave the smaller integrated school that was much closer to my home, I have come to deeply appreciate my students at this school.
The students pick up right where they left off the day before. Entering class, they engage in lively discussions about visiting the Eiffel Tower and seeing castles. Of course, I have other plans for the day, a unit to complete, a test to prepare for, grades to gather, and French language to teach, for God’s sake. A trip like that would cost a fortune, I tell them, hardly a possibility for me or most of their families.
“I mentioned this to my mom last night,” Keisha chimes in, “and she said she’d do anything she could to get me on a plane to Europe.” A few others echo similar sentiments from their parents.
“If your parents are interested, then let’s schedule a meeting here some night and see what they have to say,” I counter, knowing how difficult it can be for parents to arrange to get off jobs or come to school after long, full workdays. This will probably nip the idea in the bud. I have a load of approximately one hundred and thirty students, but rarely see over a dozen parents on parent/teacher night. How many would actually come for a meeting about a trip to Europe? The students conspire and set a meeting night as I shake my head.
Uncharacteristically, I’m late to the meeting scheduled early the next week, still doubtful of people showing up. But my classroom is standing room only, filled with students and parents. I’m not even prepared to present a proposal, so I randomly toss out questions, wondering how something like this could ever get off the ground. I have never orchestrated a journey or fundraising venture. The enthusiasm and ideas start flowing in and, sure enough, in the weeks that follow the “European Dreamers” are adding fundraising activities to their part time jobs: raking leaves, washing cars, setting up gospel music programs, basketball games, bake sales, raffles, a silent auction. They are even writing to their favorite celebrities and concerned citizens—over seven hundred letters in all. By the end of the summer fifteen dreamers have demonstrated their commitment, sixteen if I can convince every country we plan to travel through to allow Renel to visit without a birth certificate or passport.
By the end of the year, the eighteen hundred dollars needed per student has been raised, through the amazing efforts of students and dedicated parents, the gifts of such well-knowns as John Grisham and Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, and the abundant generosity of my personal friends. In less than three months, we will be crossing the Atlantic, sadly without Renel, for whom we gained approval from every country we would visit, with the exception of assuring Renel’s reentry into the United States. Mississippi’s Senator sadly informed us only weeks before our departure: “The INS authorities are unable to make a favorable decision in Renel’s behalf.” Renel is understandably despondent, but characteristic of this resilient young man, he writes the most beautifully expressive letter—in French—wishing us all a perfect trip.
But that’s not the only hiccup. Several days later I get an early morning call from Keisha that one of our dreamers, Kamala, is in the hospital, having delivered a one-pound-eight-ounce premature baby at twenty-six weeks. “Kamala was pregnant?” I answer, stunned and already imagining if this delivery had occurred during our trip or, heaven forbid, on the plane.
“She says she didn’t know she was pregnant, Ms. Eagle,” Keisha answers, apparently as surprised as I am. Kamala and the baby are doing well, the child in neonatal intensive care. I head to the hospital, greeted by a bevy of healthcare providers questioning me about this beautiful and bright young mother.
“During her delivery she kept asking us if she would still be able to go to Europe,” they explain, “but we didn’t understand what she was talking about.” They are curious and interested in the story about the European Dreamers, soon asking me more questions about this young mother. As the trip organizer and merely one of Kamala’s teachers, I obviously don’t know the answers since, I remind these nurses, I didn’t even know she was pregnant. I make some guesses, hoping to help the baby and Kamala, who has been one of our most inspiring dreamers, writing poetry and speaking eloquently at fundraisers. Kamala’s doing well, and the baby girl is stable, though likely to be in the hospital for several weeks or longer as she strengthens and gains weight. Kamala, they inform me, could very well continue with her plans to travel if she doesn’t overexert.
Sixteen students—including Kamala and my stepson Shawn, plus one student’s mother and grandmother and another chaperone—all join me for this adventure. Shawn is the only white student, but he’s used to that, having been the only white player on his basketball team at another Jackson high school. My students warmly welcome him, and he entertains them with his outgoing personality. I’m excited he has this chance to go to Europe, his way paid for by my deceased friend John and John’s partner Sidney.
From the romance of the Eiffel Tower to the breathtaking blue of the Mediterranean to the sacred charm of Mont Saint Michel then returning again for celebrations at the urban Paris school with whom we’ve been corresponding the last year, these sixteen students dance and sing and laugh their way across Europe, beguiling the French to stop in amazement at their joy and beauty. One evening the kids break into song on a Paris street corner, and I toss down a hat and watch delighted Parisians toss out coins and flowers. The entire voyage easily becomes unforgettable as we land back on American turf, weary and undoubtedly feeling blessed for our two weeks of learning, play, and exploration.
On our return, a separation and possible divorce loom for Bill and me, and Shawn is flubbing around with his final requirements for senior English, hence toying with whether he will graduate or not, despite exasperating efforts to help him pass. Then something happens with the Dreamers that muddles life further. During that hospital visit before our trip, one of Kamala’s nurses had asked me if I thought an AIDS test would be a good idea, and, apparently, I said yes. Somehow this information becomes widely known upon our return. I don’t clearly remember the interaction with the nurses that day and am lost in my own bewilderment at this point, and deeply hurt and confused about the anger and distancing that occurs with several of the European Dreamers. Kamala didn’t know she was pregnant; I didn’t know who the father was; someone I deeply loved had just died of AIDS—yes, I probably said yes, give her the test.
Back home, I’m distracted by my own personal worries, struggling for a more profound understanding of my own family experience—with Shawn, with Bill, and with my mom and dad from whom I’m estranged, my dad and I never speaking again after our clandestine meeting on his Cleburne property. Without a therapist after two moves, without sufficient coping skills, having once again stuffed down memories that surfaced five years ago, I am overwhelmed and not navigating life well.
How easily I might have been insensitive with that quick answer, not taking the time to thoughtfully ponder the lived black experiences of my students, especially here in Jackson, Mississippi. My efforts to help make their dream to travel to Europe a reality may have been notable but are nothing in comparison to the dream to be treated fairly that they and other black people have been struggling toward for more than a century. When what I perceived as ingratitude clashed with my hurt, confusion and exhaustion, I sensed what it must feel like to have one’s life experience minimalized. What is it that allows us to grasp more fully the reality of others, to place ourselves outside of our own lives and deeply understand the suffering, sadness, confusion, and struggles of our fellow human beings?
Whatever the answer to that question is, that’s what an all-black church soon models for this sad white teacher. One of the Dreamers, David—perhaps recognizing my angst—invites me to his church one Sunday. More than likely he had told his preacher
about what was going on at school with the European Dreamers, because the preacher seems like he is talking only to me during the entire sermon. I can’t contain my tears. I cry out my sadness for the students whose trust I have lost, whom I feel I have failed somehow. I cry for losing John to AIDS. I cry for failing at my marriage and as a stepmother. I cry for babies not born, those born too early, and those born who die too soon. And I cry for the memories of sexual abuse by my dad, and still not knowing what to do with them.
As the choir fills the little church with song after song, I am held, hugged, and patted on the back by every accepting, loving member of that entire congregation.
GETTING BETTER AT LIFE
1994 (age 42)—Houston, Texas
“Does life ever get any easier?” I ask Sister Antoinette as we walk along the bayou southwest of Houston. Herons stalk fish in the shallow waters below, occasionally taking off in a long, slow, swoosh that brings us to a stop as we watch their majestic wings lift them off the ground. My life seems to stay in tangles that won’t let a comb slide through. I don’t think I’ll ever get the snarls out.
“Life doesn’t necessarily get any easier, but you do get better at it,” Antoinette answers in that beautiful, soothing voice that has guided me ever since she was my first principal at the start of my teaching career. Although Sister Antoinette is her formal Dominican name, she shortened it to “Kitty” somewhere during her fifty-five years. I’ve watched Kitty’s attire change over the last two decades from clunky shoes, hair pulled back in a bun, and below-the-knee white habits to sensible pumps, dark conservative suits with white blouses, and a small gold cross necklace. She’s wearing tennis shoes right now for our walk. It doesn’t matter what she wears, she sparkles through an easy laugh, eyes open to all of life, and an earnest attentiveness straight from her soul.
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