The Journal

by Ronnica Z Rothe

  “Homeschooled? What’s that?”

  “Oh, yes, I forget that spanking wasn’t the only thing outlawed. Homeschooling is where you were taught at home, usually because your parents were afraid of what you might find out from going to public school.”

  “Ooh, I want to be homeschooled!” I said, thinking it’d be a great escape from all the drama at school.

  “It’s not as pleasant as it seems. Still, the government realized that parents should not be trusted to school their children as they weren’t experts, so it was outlawed several decades ago. The reason my parents chose to homeschool me was that they said that they wanted to make sure that we had a strong foundation before sending us off into the ‘world.’ They tried to teach us their worldview—that’s what they called it—so that I could interpret everything else just like they would. It worked, too, but then I found that it was easier to just fit in with everyone else.

  “As I got older,” Grandma continued, “and spent more and more time with my friends from school, I found that I was more comfortable leaving the churchy stuff for church and when my parents were around. The rest of the time, I preferred to just do my own thing and not be held back by their rules.

  “I was able to live like that for a while, but everyone at church kept acting like I was the perfect young lady. I couldn’t stand the hypocrisy. I knew that I wasn’t the only one either—I was friends with the other kids at church, and many were like me. We would go out in groups to ‘evangelize’—to tell people they’re wrong and convince them to join us—but we’d really go to a friend’s house and hang out, maybe smoke a little weed and make out with our boyfriends, the ones our parents had no idea about.”

  A shocked look crossed my face which reminded Grandma of her audience.

  “Not that I’m condoning that behavior, young lady,” she backtracked. “What my parents forced me into may have been bad, but I wasn’t any better for doing those things at such a young age. I realize that now thanks to maturity, but at the time I thought that that was what life was all about and what youth was made for.

  “This went on for several months, and I was very careful to change my clothes before I came home, so Mom and Dad wouldn’t smell the pot on me. It worked too—or perhaps they were too focused on Logan and Aiden, as they were at more formative ages. They thought that they were pretty much done parenting me, having a capable, responsible young lady who espoused all of their favorite ideals, like sending people to hell and gay bashing.

  “But a month before I was to turn 17, Mom caught me doing my laundry. She decided that since it was a sunny day, I should enjoy it, so she sent me out to ‘play’ as she would say—really just an excuse to have some peace and quiet in the house. As she took over stuffing my laundry in the washer, she smelled that unique, pungent smell—trust me, it’s incredibly obvious, though you better not know what I’m talking about, young lady—and called me back.

  “My first inclination when she asked me about the smell was to lie, of course. I guess she was giving me a chance to come clean. I told her that it was the smell of one of the apartments we had been visiting to evangelize. I figured that if it I told her we had been there more than once, that would give me a better explanation as to why most of my clothing smelled.

  “She then went on to tell me that it was pot—I don’t know how she knew, but she did—and that perhaps I shouldn’t go back to that apartment, or perhaps, we could meet that person, ‘Ramona’ (the name I had given her), somewhere in public. I glibly agreed and went on my way, happy that I hadn’t really been figured out.

  “Everything was fine until the next day at dinner. Dad asked me to tell him where the apartment was, and I told the address of the only place I could think of—the apartment where we would smoke weed and hangout. I didn’t know he’d do it, but that next day, he went there and knocked on the door and asked for Ramona. Guess who answered the door?”

  “You? You were there?” I said. The suspense left me on edge.

  “Yep, yours truly. Not only did I answer the door of the apartment I wasn’t allowed to visit any more, but I had a joint in my hand. Under the influence, I started laughing. Dad dragged me by the collar, and took me home. After I sobered up, I realized that he was coming to invite Ramona to our house for dinner—he wanted to reach out to the girl with a drug problem that I made up. Turns out, that girl was me.”

  “So what did he do? Is that when you ran away?”

  “Well, it was a couple months later when I ran away. Mom and Dad’s first response was to take away all of my privileges. They took me out of school and decided to re-homeschool me since the first round of indoctrination clearly didn’t work. I wasn’t allowed to leave the house unless I was by their side, going somewhere they wanted to go. My phone was taken away, and they only allowed me to use my laptop under strict supervision. I was miserable, so I left.”

  “Did you ever go back?”

  “Nope. It was hard, but I did it. I was tired of living the life of a fake.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Well, my first thought was to go to the apartment of my pot-smoking friend. But I knew Mom and Dad would look there first, probably to drag me to some Christian drug treatment farm. So that guy hooked me up with a friend of his, who gave me his couch to crash on. I got a job as a waitress and started making really good money. Turns out I’m really good at it—or at least I was, before I got these bum hips.”

  “You must have seen some rich people in the restaurant!” I exclaimed.

  “Oh, some, I suppose. But don’t forget that back then, it wasn’t just the rich who went to restaurants. Everyone did. After a few months, I earned enough to find a small apartment of my own. They were cheaper back in those days.”

  “When did you meet Grandpa?”

  “Oh, it was about 8 years later, or so. I had already earned my GED—which I had to do since I didn’t finish high school—and started attending classes to become a chef. Daljeet, your grandfather, was in my class, and we hit it off. We used our experience and education to start our own restaurant which was a lot of fun. When the restaurant industry started closing down because no one could afford to eat out as much, we had to sell our business. I don’t regret it, though.”

  I was thankful to finally find out more about Grandma’s past, especially since she willingly shared. Her parents sounded like interesting characters; I would have loved to learn more about them. Too bad it wasn’t their journals that I had found!

  Later that night, I settled in to read another entry in Beth’s journal. I was hoping to come home and read the Bible that night—somehow—but it looks like I’d have to wait a little longer to get my hands on one. Instead, I turned to Beth, a new friend in her own way.

 

  November 22, 2001

  Tonight is Thanksgiving. Meg came home—so good to see her—and we had the traditional meal with just the three of us: Mom, Meg, and I. Granny, Papa, and Uncle Bill came over as well, but it still didn’t seem the same without Dad.

  Mom made way too much food, and it would still have been too much food even if Dad had been here. Knowing we were going to Dad’s later, I tried not to cut myself too large of a piece of pecan pie, but it was really hard to refrain.

  On our way to Dad’s, Meg tried to keep it light. It was hard not to remember why we had to split time between Mom and Dad’s on the holiday, but in the car we sung along to “Independent Women” at the top of our lungs and laughed together.

  When we got to Dad’s, we were surprised. We expected we’d be eating frozen pizza or cereal or something else bachelor-esque but instead, we found on his small table the complete Thanksgiving spread (that wasn’t particularly appealing after Thanksgiving lunch) before our eyes. The apartment was even decorated nicely for the fall holiday, and there was nothing out of order like the last time I was there.

  Then we turned the corner and walked into the small apartment kitchen and found a bigger surprise: Suzanne.<
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  There was a knock at my door.

  Crying

  “Amala?” my mom’s voice called timidly from the other side of my bedroom door.

  “Yes?” I impatiently answer.

  “Can I speak to you?”

  “Sure, if you won’t yell at me,” I said, saying the last part under my breath. I quickly slid Beth’s journal under my pillow and sat up.

  I unlocked the door with my chip, and it came sliding open. I could tell my Mom had been crying, but I didn’t say anything or try to comfort her. I never knew how to handle it when my mom cried.

  “These past few weeks, if I’ve been home, you’ve been staying holed up in your room. I don’t like what our friendship has become.” Interesting, I would have never described my relationship with my mother as a friendship.

  “Mom, I spend time in my room whether you’re home or not. It’s not because of you,” I apologized, realizing that I left the door open for my Mom to ask why I was holing myself up in my room at all. Hoping to deflect her I added, “Besides, you are not home that much...so I’m not the only one who’s being distant.”

  “I’m sorry for that, Amala. I really am. I just don’t know what to do differently. I must be ready to leave this house at a moment’s notice, it’s the nature of a foodie. Besides, I get the privilege of not only providing for you and Chester, but for the whole Triangle with my job. If I do something wrong, people may starve.”

  “I know your job’s important, and that you don’t have control over when a crisis hits. I’m not blaming you for anything. I’m just trying to explain why we aren’t as close as we were when I was growing up. Besides, I’m older now—I don’t need you that often.”

  With that, fresh tears came to Mom’s eyes, as she sat on the bed beside me, and reached over to give me a big hug. I never intended to make Mom cry, though I know I have before.

  “Don’t mind my tears,” Mom said, wiping them away and forcing a smile. “You’re just reminding me that you are growing up, and don’t need me as much. It makes a mother’s heart hurt to hear those words, no matter how true they are.”

  There was silence in the room, as Mom’s tears continued down her cheeks. Finally she looked me in the eye and said, “That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I talked to your grandmother when I got home.”

  “And by talking, you mean yelling,” I interrupted, knowing that that was all too often the character of their “discussions” even if I had my music up too loud to hear them.

  “Well, yes. That was the problem. We were fighting like usual, and that made me wonder how our relationship got to be the way it is.”

  I still did not get the point of why Mom had turned to me. She had just admitted herself that we weren’t that close, so I’m not likely to be her first choice as a shoulder to cry on.

  “And then I wondered what our relationship—yours and mine—would look like in 25 years. Would we only talk to each other with angry words? Would we even have a relationship at all, or would we go our own separate ways?” I could barely hear the last few words Mom said as she started to sob.

  Now I understand why Mom came to me. She loved me—I never doubted that—but it was hard to be with her sometimes. Everything seemed to have to be perfect for her. And I was too much like her—we were both prone to over-the-top emotions.

  It wasn’t a couple moments more before my tears were mingling with hers. I can’t watch anyone cry—most certainly not my mother—and not cry myself. And then, I too imagined what it would be like to have no relationship with my mother.

  We simply cried together.

  That night Mom didn’t get called back in to work. Instead, she and I simply laid on my small bed together, talking for a long time. I was careful to keep the conversation away from what happened after the concert and my work, but I did spill about Sebastian—all but our last meeting together. I hadn’t even realized that we had fallen asleep, until my alarm went off at 6:00. I slept better that night than I had in a long time, with no dreams of that awful night. In fact, the only dream I had was quiet strange.

  In the dream, I was laying in my bed, but alone in the dark. I heard a voice speak out from above my bed. It said, “You too, Amala, can have eternal life.”

  That was it—there was nothing else to the dream. No clowns or snakes, no impossible task to be performed, just that one sentence, and a feeling of overwhelming peace.

  I wanted to talk to someone about it, but I just didn’t know whether Mom or Ming would be the best person to ask.

  As I was listening to my English lecture from Professor Julie Anne the next day, I really did try to concentrate. But the more I tried to focus on the professor’s talk on how to edit my essays, the more my mind was focused on last night’s dream.

  The problem with the dream was that it was so short. I’ve never really tried to interpret dreams in the past, but I’ve always found my dreams to be rambly and random, not straight to the point as this one seemed to be.

  And what did that mean? “You too, Amala, can have eternal life.” Sounds like someone else already had it—but who?

  And what does “eternal life” mean? I’m not kooky enough to think that I’ll live forever, especially not just because an anonymous voice in a dream said so. Technology might be advanced, but it’s not that advanced.

  At lunch, I told Ming about the dream. At first I had planned to keep it to myself, but since it was about the only thing I could think about, I knew I had to share it.

  “ ‘You too, Amala, can have eternal life?’ That’s...interesting.” Ming paused to consider what I had told her. “You should look it up online and see what pops up.”

  So when I got home from school that afternoon—no work, since it was a Friday—that’s exactly what I did. I spent several hours reading things written from all sorts of perspectives, and found a lot more than I could process. The more I read, the more I wasn’t sure that I would want to live forever if it was even possible (and I was certainly skeptical). And then I remembered that I had read in Beth’s journal a quote that had that very phrase, “eternal life.”

  I opened the journal, and started from the beginning. Sure enough, about ten pages into it, I found the quote I was thinking of:

  “For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” - John 3:16

  Whoever believes in God can have eternal life. While I’ve believed for some time that there was at least some type of God out there—never thought much more than that—this was new to me. Though I’ve been searching for a Bible, I had never seriously considering believing in the God talked about in the Bible.

  That is, until now.

  After a busy day at work Saturday—Hasan actually let me answer some of the customers’ questions since he was overwhelmed—Sunday came quickly. I was really excited to have a chance to visit an actual church; it was like going back in history. Besides, I was hoping someone there would have an English Bible for me, though Ethel had made no such promise.

  I hadn’t thought to ask about what to wear. I chipped Ming, and she didn’t know either.

  Ming: wait, i have an idea

  Ming: shouldn’t we wear “church clothes?” maybe that’s where that expression came from

  I’m not sure why that thought hadn’t occurred to me, but she was probably right. I pulled out a nice black dress that I haven’t worn in a while—it was almost too short—and put it on. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I could almost pass for a turn of the millennial teenager. Cool, I thought.

  It was almost 10:00 in the morning when I was leaving the apartment. Mom and Chester were still asleep—sleeping in on Sundays was a favorite family tradition, and one that I hadn’t missed in a long time.

  With one last look in the mirror, I headed out the door. I put two addresses into the waiting two-person pod: Ming’s first, and then the address Ethel gave us for Maria’s, where the church was meeting today.

>   As the pod pulled up outside of Ming’s apartment, I chipped her that I was waiting. Since she wasn’t quite ready, I walked up the stairs to her front door, which she opened for me. Ming’s apartment was on the fourth floor of a rather large building that had clearly been built in the last 10 years or so. Unlike my apartment that had been retrofitted, these were quite nice, if small.

  As I walked in, I saw a middled-aged woman—Ming’s mom, likely—sitting in a chair, snoozing. I walked past her down the hallway, and towards the open bedroom door. Sure enough, it was Ming’s room. Inside Ming was throwing around a pile of clothes—she wasn’t the only one that had a hard time picking out what to wear—and finally pulled out her purse from underneath a long-sleeved sweater.

  “Ready to go, slow poke?”

  “Yeah, yeah, just a sec,” Ming expressed as she walked up to the mirror to put on lipstick. I had never seen Ming wear makeup before, but she did a good job of accentuating, not covering up, her fine features. “Okay, let’s go,” she said, putting her lipstick in her purse.

  As the pod pulled up to Maria’s apartment building—a stout but sturdy building a couple of blocks from Ming’s—I could feel the butterflies in my stomach dancing. I honestly didn’t know what to expect; my only experience of church was in the movies, and those always seemed stiff, formal, and to be truthful, quite dead. But since this wasn’t a church building but someone’s home, what would it be like?

  It took Ming and me a few minutes to find Maria’s door, as it was tucked into a corner, but as we approached it, we were greeted by an older woman before we even had time to ring the doorbell.

  “Hello and welcome!” she said in a truly inviting tone. “I’m Maria, and I’m so glad you could make it today. Ethel told us you two would be coming.”