Stepping on Cheerios

by Snyder, Betsy Singleton;

  My favorite Potter character is Professor Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Albus, from the Latin, means “bright or white.” As a pastor, that got my attention because I often wear a liturgical robe called an alb, which, in the tradition of the early church, symbolizes baptism and resurrection. Dumbledore is a character who often fights the darkness that threatens to engulf the wizarding world, or any world.

  In discussing Dumbledore as the central mentor found in the books, Rowling has been quoted as saying, “Dumbledore is a very wise man who knows that Harry is going to have to learn a few hard lessons to prepare him for what may be coming in his life. He allows Harry to get into what he wouldn’t allow another pupil to do, and he also unwillingly permits Harry to confront things he’d rather protect him from.”

  Professor Dumbledore’s greatest wisdom is in acknowledging that evil is real and that part of the human journey is to renounce it and, possibly, to fight it. One of the values I like most about the books is their willingness to name evil and refuse evil as the last and final word.

  What surprised me most about some of the initial criticism of the popular books was the objection by certain Christians that the Harry Potter books are about magic and the occult when the books are instead clearly about something more frightening: the struggle between goodness and evil, life and death, hate and love. Whether we want our children to know about bad stuff is not the issue. It’s how we talk about and model handling the dangers and disasters that will ultimately equip our children.

  Use Your Super, Simple Mom Powers

  Shopping can be dangerous. It was the end of summer. A local department store was having a great sale. Thank heavens we have almost all guys in our house so that fashion changes are minimal, not that my man doesn’t care about fashion. Everyone in our state knows he wears themed neckties, including soccer, flag, faces of cute children, and even Cat in the Hat; in other words, normal statement ties for a sixty-nine-year-old doctor, lawyer, and political type of guy. Once I begged him to change his school-themed tie before attending a Rosanne Cash concert at the governor’s mansion. Johnny Cash’s talented daughter was in town to raise money for her father’s boyhood home in Dyess, Arkansas. I was dressed in all black, which seemed the superior way to honor the daughter of the “man in black.” When we stepped up to get our picture with the singer and songwriter, she betrayed me. “Oh, look at that cool tie!” she said and seemed to mean it. I trusted you, Roseanne!

  So, on this shopping trip, it was with great fortitude that I took my three-year-old to buy Daddy some clothes. I tried to move quickly, gathering up undies, T-shirts, dress shirts, a couple of ties, and blue jeans. I knew all my friends and neighbors would certainly be glad to see Victor in a decent pair of jeans. He tends to wear them until they’re hanging by a denim thread. And when I suggest he dispose of them, he says they are a sign of his ability to make fashion (he may be the oldest hipster I know). “Most people pay big money for this look,” he tells me. Gigantic sigh.

  I can’t ignore crucial Bible stories that refer to the presence of evil in the world.

  Penn’s behavior at the store was good, but he was at that three-ish stage during which he loved running through the clothing racks. I remember doing that when I was kid, running through the bolts of fabric and seeing if my older sister, who was also trying to corral her children, could find me. Believe me, she’s yucking it up now.

  As Penn darted in and out of clothing, he begged to go up the escalator. We’d just been to DC a few weeks earlier and maneuvered escalators at the airport and the metro. We’d taught him when to step on the escalator and when and how to exit. We had cautioned him about keeping his feet on the middle of the escalator. He’d done quite well. So I promised we’d go up and down the escalator before we left the store.

  The sales clerk in the department offered to hold our giant bag while we rode the escalator, the final treat before heading home and the payoff for waiting on Mommy. As we stepped on the escalator, I reminded Penn not to take his eyes off the steps, but midway through, he did. He had his back to the step as we ascended. I called to him two or three times to turn around, and he finally did and stepped off nicely, but it took a little too long for him to respond—a toddler, developmental wiring issue.

  After stepping off, we turned around to make our descent. Everything was going well. I’d gotten my husband’s clothes and entertained our three-year-old with no major incident. I’d get home in a little over an hour. The time factor always weighed on me when there were three babies at home and help was so limited.

  Just as I saw Penn’s right foot on the side of the escalator and was just about to tell him to take his foot off the side of the moving stair, he started a panicked whimper. I pulled his foot, and it didn’t readily yield his camouflage Mickey Mouse Croc. His foot was stuck. All of my mom wisdom about everything from BB guns to electrical outlets came back to me. Giant letters in bold red: escalators really are dangerous.

  I grabbed and pulled harder. Penn grew more panicked. Finally, the Croc came loose and so did my child’s foot. We were descending fast. As we stepped off, Penn let out a death scream, followed by a silence that was long enough to take a breath before he screamed some more. I pulled off the mauled Croc, which had a big gash across the top, but there was no blood. Best I could tell, the Croc was bit, but the child was OK—on the outside. It was fear that still had hold of him.

  “Are you crying because you’re scared?” I asked. He nodded furiously. I held him at the bottom of the escalator right in front of the makeup counters where distracted clerks gave him empathetic glances.

  After the crying subsided, I said, “We’re going up again.” Of course, this suggestion was met with panic, but I explained we would start with Mommy carrying him.

  “Penn, we have to get back on this horse, or you’ll be scared of the escalator next time we need to use one.”

  I picked him up and put him down as we went up. He allowed this independence, stating, “We have da keep our feets in da middle of dese stairs.”

  That’s right, Honey.

  The Dumbledore Approach

  Since the terrorist violence in Kenya years ago, there have been many more instances of terror, war, and natural disaster, some in our own country, some around the world. There have been close calls and actual events.

  As a momma, not as a pastor, I have had the opportunity to decide if I would talk with my children about difficult and deadly things, or not. Of course, certain disclosure depends on a child’s developmental stage.

  Because I’m the sort of Christian who thinks everyone would benefit from a reality check with a good therapist to talk about the hard stuff, I can’t ignore crucial Bible stories that refer to the presence of evil in the world: Herod’s slaughter of the innocents, Stephen’s murder, or Jesus’s execution. As Martin Luther King Jr. once told the Ebenezer Baptist congregation he served, the church collectively must acknowledge Good Friday, or it cannot truly heal people. It reminds me of the way I loved playing ball in our yard in summer. The yard was very green but contained awful stickers, barely noticeable until you are splayed across them in a slide. Woe to those who slide across those sticky patches.

  About the time of the shopping trip with Penn, Haiti was devastated by an earthquake. It was almost impossible to protect a child completely from the images of the people in Haiti. I received word that one of my own Methodist colleagues had died in a hotel that collapsed. He was there working on poverty issues.

  I was not working in a local church at the time. I was on disability from heart failure. But the following Sunday after the earthquake, we visited a worship service with our big baby crew in tow.

  As we settled in, the children’s minister mentioned Haiti’s plight in her time with the young ones. She also demonstrated how to make health kits to send to Haiti to be distributed to those in need. As a momma, I found myself relieved that this woman mentioned the Haitians and the earthquak
e in church and gave the children a sense that they could help people in need. Déjà vu.

  I confess I didn’t turn off the TV news or shield my three-year-old from all the images, though I was careful to control the amount of viewing time and content. I watched some of the news of Haiti with him, and we talked about it. I tried to provide a context. The minister’s words from Sunday actually reinforced the conversation we’d had about ways to help those in difficult circumstances, emphasizing that is our calling as Christians.

  The next week, on the way home from his dance class, Penn suddenly started talking about “the ersquake people.” Maybe it was because I often have public radio on in the car when I first pick him up at school. Perhaps the reporter said something about Haiti that I didn’t hear. But my boy began suggesting that we not only make the health kit but also send food and water. “Don’t forget the water,” he said very seriously, “that’s very, very, very important.”

  I very much want to shield my children from the hard stuff of life, but I also want to equip them to face pain. It is a fine line that we parents walk, tiptoeing across the high wire of safety and risk, contributing to the healthful formation of a human being.

  Penn also heard me tell his daddy that we ought to consider getting a Haitian child because “what would one more in our home be?” To which Penn replied, “I sink we cud prabubly do two more babies.”

  Always Carry Band-Aids

  We didn’t get any more babies, not of the human kind. Instead, we continued to load up on dogs. I’ve always had dogs, but a surprising reality is that your children are not you. At some point, we had to accept that Penn was a cat person. Although we weren’t particularly keen on more animals, Victor and I decided that a seven-year-old could have his own pet and, with it, the incumbent litter box, feeding, and play required to house and care for a domestic animal.

  I searched listings on a local rescue group’s website. We went to the vet who had a litter of tuxedo kittens listed. Penn was enamored with one very small kitten. She was predominantly white, with black swaths and a striking mark down her nose, as if she’d sniffed a permanent black marker and missed.

  Penn decided to adopt her, so we scheduled further shots and worming. The doctor gave us a box, like a Build-A-Bear carryall, and we headed to a local pet store for food, a collar, treats, and toys. On the way home, I asked my child, “What are you going to name her?” He thought of some names like Snow and Ice. I suggested she looked like a Sonic Blizzard, made of vanilla ice cream with chunks of Oreo thrown around. He liked that.

  Blizzard was a sweet kitten. Penn held her almost all the time. He snuggled with her, sat with her, read to her, and cared for her. By Christmas, it became apparent that Blizzard was not getting bigger, and she was not playing like a crazy, feet-flying, spasmodic creature on catnip.

  The vet offered several diseases, none of which were very good. It soon became clear that Blizzard had the one stupid kitty illness that wasn’t going to get better. That began the conversation about when to put her to sleep, and that conversation included our boy.

  Our vet was proud of us, he said, because his parents made his animals disappear when they were old. He grew up thinking his pets didn’t like him. Rather than helping him process loss, his parents had led him to believe that his pets were just happier elsewhere. When he told me this horror story, I concluded, No wonder you’re a vet! Unresolved! Still, I understood why his parents wanted to protect him from losing a beloved member of the family.

  Penn decided he wanted to be with his kitten when she was put down. I explained that he could be with her the whole time. I told him her doctor would give Blizzard a little shot that would not hurt and would put her to sleep forever. I explained that being with Blizzard at the end might be hard, but he could be with her the whole time, and we would be with him. I didn’t explain that this loss was going to hurt him, like a pebble rubbing against his tender little heart, until that pebble is slowly worn smooth, and his sadness ebbs and is replaced more often by memories of love.

  My sweet child remained to the end, with heartbreaking cries. I’ve cried for my own pets, each so unique and intertwined with a particular time in my life, but it was different to see my son experience his own Good Friday. I looked up at Victor, and we were both crying. Our own gift was simply to be there. We could not make it better.

  Some weeks later, we visited the animal shelter. I’d been there the day the city had opened it and dedicated it. The prayer I gave at that event was about caring for all animals and still hangs on the wall of the facility.

  We were escorted to the cat section. There was one kitten, a tabby, nothing like Blizzard, but he stole Penn’s heart. On the way home Penn immediately named him Cougar.

  Cougar didn’t snuggle as much as the sick little kitten had. He was too healthy. He played and danced across and under furniture. It soon became clear to Penn that he had not replaced Blizzard. He continued to cry for her, especially in the evenings before bed. I rubbed his back and told him how sorry I was. We ordered a stone marker for the place on the hillside of our yard where we buried Blizzard. A friend from church painted him a picture of his first kitten to be hung in his room. At some point, I purchased Penn a few books from Erin Hunter’s cat series, The Warrior Clan. I learned that in the cat world, I’m a two-legged.

  Cougar has grown into a big tabby guy who sits on my computer and my lap. He talks to me. I’ve seen how he’s taken a different place in my son’s heart. Penn is older and wiser and has trained his friend to come for treats and pets. When I recently went through a bad patch at work, Cougar sat for hours on my bed. The only downside of having Cougar is that all those allergy shots I had years ago as a kid have worn off. I am allergic to this cat and have asthma for the first time in my life. People have told me we should get rid of the cat, but he’s family. So I go get the shots, use my inhaler, and practice finding light in the darkness by means of an ordinary tabby cat who loves us. That cat is sometimes the sacred Band-Aid to my own wounds, and my rescued self.

  Blessed Are the Tears

  One of the most moving scenes in the Harry Potter series is when Harry learns that Professor Severus Snape is not in alignment with the evil wizard Lord Voldemort and instead actually made the greatest sacrifice of all. As Snape dies, he tells Harry to collect his tears, that Harry might use them to magically understand his story. Snape not only truly loved Harry’s mother, Lily Potter, but also vowed to do whatever Dumbledore asked of him to protect Harry, even while appearing to be an accomplice of evil. Instead, Snape gives his own life for others. Years later, Harry names his son Albus Severus Potter.

  Life is often much more complex and layered than we’re willing to acknowledge, not only to ourselves but also to our children. Wouldn’t it be better for mothers not to wipe the tears completely, but to collect them and hold them, to process the hidden nooks and crannies we cram to the back, where the light is not so bright and we are not known so fully?

  I love a particular line in Psalm 56, which is a lament.

  You yourself have kept track of my misery.

  Put my tears into your bottle—

  aren’t they on your scroll already? (v. 8)

  No matter what, God suffers with us, the true meaning of the word compassion. That’s how God loves us, by respecting our tears, by collecting them not as a waste, but as part of our story. Tears are certainly part of our biblical story, the way Jesus weeps over his dear friend Lazarus, and the way he cries over the sacred city of Jerusalem that fails to heed God’s message. Life and death bring tears, but they also bring happiness.

  Note

  J. K. Rowling at the Royal Albert Hall, interview by Stephen Fry, June 26, 2003.

  CHAPTER 10

  DOG IS GOD SPELLED BACKWARD

  He told another parable to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and planted in his field. It’s the smallest of all seeds. But when it’s grown, it’s the largest of all vegetable plants.
It becomes a tree so that the birds in the sky come and nest in its branches.” He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast, which a woman took and hid in a bushel of wheat flour until the yeast had worked its way through all the dough.”

  —Matthew 13:31-33

  “To make bread or love, to dig in the earth, to feed an animal or cook for a stranger—these activities require no extensive commentary, no lucid theology. All they require is someone willing to bend, reach, chop, stir.”

  —Barbara Brown Taylor

  It was a lazy, rainy fall day. Mom loaded me and my nephew, Joe, in the car and drove us to a nearby park loaded with big trees. (I have a nephew my age because Mom and Sister were pregnant at the same time. Awkward, but ultimately fun.)

  We were seven years old. Joe often spent the night with Mom, which gave me the bonus of an extra sibling my age and untold adventures that, to this day, are our own sweet history: walking the woods, climbing stuff, skipping rocks, picking garden vegetables, going to the junkyard with my stepdad, shooting my BB gun at cans, and looking for turtles in creeks.

  Because of the light rain that day, we were seekers under a shedding canopy of fall color, which was a striking view. As we walked across the wet ground, Mom encouraged us to find and collect our favorite leaves, whatever enchanted us. We meandered slowly, poking with the toes of our tennis shoes, to work at uncovering colors and patterns. There was an astonishing vibrancy to the damp bits of leftover glory yielded by an oak or elm: buttery yellow, tawny, pumpkin orange, cardinal, and soft wine. It was not surprising to see crumpled brown leaves, but, on this day, they seemed to recede in reverence to the vibrancy of color. We felt the slow, steady droplets of water from the leaves above, their stems yet to let go. Still, we kept our eyes to the earth and the bed of fall below our feet, the only noise being our slow footsteps treading along a trail of beauty. We stepped gingerly, then, when inspired, bent down carefully to scoop a leaf that could not be ignored.