I met a woman today who was pacing beneath a grove of trees near the river. From a distance, beneath the shadows, I couldn’t tell much, other than that they were dark-complected. As a white man, there’s often an air of distrust when I meet people—not always, but often. She was ushering her two young children along as they struggled to keep up with her pace and still find the time to explore the bounty of treasures on the ground among the fallen twigs and leaves, but they still managed to scoop up one thing or another as their little legs scurried along. Something about it seemed intentional–more like exercise. I had to talk to her, but I couldn’t approach slowly and delicately because I would look like a creep. Truth was, I didn’t know if they were homeless or just out for a jaunt. I waited until the kids were close to her, so she would have to worry about that.
“Good morning!” I called to her and waved. “This is a great little spot, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty,” she replied with caution.
I could tell she was not someone who was distrustful of white folks.
“My name’s Matt. I’m actually,” I stammered, looking out over the water, “I’m actually on the street now, and I’m just kind of walking around trying to figure out what I’m going to do next.”
I didn’t look at her. She didn’t say anything. I picked up a twig and examined it. She obviously wasn’t going to spill out her life story twenty seconds after I wandered into the grove. I apologized, “Sorry. What do you say to something like that, right?”
“I’d say, ‘You and me, both.’”
“Really? What? You mean you’re also trying to figure out what to do next, or do you mean you’re also on the street?”
“No, I got a place to go. I just don’t want to go there.”
“Oh,” I said solemnly, understanding all at once. “So, you don’t have another place to go?”
“Not really.”
My mind was reeling. There were countless scenarios playing out in my head, thinking about how these three wound up here. I kept my distance—maybe ten or twelve feet between us. She didn’t need sympathy. She needed a solution. I couldn’t offer either one.
“That sucks.”
“It does. It really, really does.”
“Let me ask you something. Let’s say you had some magical power. Now, since going back home isn’t an option, and you know you can’t change people with just a wish, if you could magically put yourself–the three of you–in kind of a best case scenario, what would that look like?”
“I honestly don’t know,” she breathed.
“Huh, you’re not very good at this magic thing, are you?”
“No, I guess not.”
“Well, I don’t know enough about what happened or what’s happening to be able to just say, ‘Here’s what you need to do,’ but I can see there are three necessities. You need to get these kids to a place where they’re safe, that’s first. Second, you need to be safe. And third, you need to be together. We can agree on that, right?”
“Most definitely.”
“Your father was abusive?”
“My stepfather.”
I let that settle for a minute before I looked up again. “Ok, now these kids,” I looked directly at the older–I guessed four, “Put your face up so I can see what we’re dealing with. Are you a boy one or a girl one?”
She stepped boldly, “I’m a girl!”
“With conviction!” I said. “Ok, good. A lot of people don’t even know that much these days. Now, what about you?” I asked the younger.
“He’s a boy,” his sister answered.
“Alright, now, have you two found any good lizards out here yet?”
“No.”
“Well, there’s one right up there in that tree.” I don’t know trees. These were tall with no limbs below about twelve or so feet up, light brown bark, and about thirty inches in diameter.
She marched up to the tree I’d pointed toward and looked up. “I don’t see one.”
“Yeah, he’s probably hiding. What you need to do is confuse him. Point your finger up the tree,” I instructed, and she did. “Now point at me… and now point at your mom… and up in the tree again… and now at your brother… now look! There he is! He just crawled around to the other side!”
Her two-year-old brother immediately came running over to look all around the tree with her. I was ninety-eight percent sure the woman was their mother at this point, so I put out my hand and walked to her, “I’m Matt. What’s your name?”
“Natalie. That’s my daughter, Mercy, and that’s Jax.”
“They’re something special. I wish I had their energy.”
“I wish you could take it. i can’t hardly keep up!”
“Oh, you’re doing alright. How old are you?”
She hesitated, “Twenty-nine.”
“Don’t you lie to me. How old are you?” I asked again.
More hesitation. “Twenty-one.”
“That I believe.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, it just makes more sense, I guess.”
“Why”
“Well, let me take a stab at it,” I started. She wasn’t going to offer any information unless she had a reason, so I gave her one. “Let’s see, you grew up in an abusive household. You were seventeen and looking for any excuse to get away. You met this guy. He was older, not particularly great-looking or well off, but he had his own place. You dated for a little while, played it loose with the birth control, giving him that boost of confidence to pop the question, then it turned out he was putting on a show, and now money’s tight, so he’s shown his true self. You’ve gone from one abusive home into another, and there’s no way you’re putting your kids through the same thing your mother put up with… how long are you going to let me go on before you tell me how dead wrong I am?”
Natalie smiled, “I just wanted to know how the story ends.”
“Oh, well, in my version, everybody lives happily ever after.”
“Sounds too good to be true.”
“Well, how far off was I?”
“Well, you started off good. I was seventeen, and he is older, but he didn’t have a place of his own. We told his parents I was nineteen and they helped us get into an apartment. Getting pregnant was the last thing in the world I wanted to do, but god had other plans. Mercy was a blessing. His parents were great. They were everything I wish my parents had been, and everything I didn’t even know to be. They were both there for the birth. My mom didn’t even know. Jax was another surprise, but that’s ok because I didn’t want to have two kids who were so far apart in age that they wouldn’t be able to relate to each other like me and my sister.”
“That’s smart. So, when did things start getting bad?”
“About a year ago. His parents were helping us out with money, which is great, but they were making a lot of the decisions about stuff, and we were kind of forced to raise the kids the way they wanted us to. They both just act so different when their grandparents aren’t around. They don’t listen, they don’t clean up their messes. They’ll do it if grandma tells them, but for some reason, they don’t think they have to listen to us.”
“That’s not good.”
“No, it’s not. And when Jax started walking up to a snake in our yard the other day, he didn’t care that I was screaming at him to stop. He just kept right on up to it.”
“Really?”
“Really. Thank the Lord, it was just a Gopher snake, because if it had been something poisonous, that would have been the end. I couldn’t catch him in time and he just grabbed that little snake and turned around to show me. I didn’t know it at the time, but I thought for sure it was a rattlesnake, and I’m screaming and screaming at him and…”
She didn’t have to relive that for me, some stranger, but it was clear it was good for her to get it out.
“I’ve never been so scared in all my life–and I’ve seen some stuff.”
“And what did the grandparents say when you told them?”
“That is was my fault and that I should have been watching him, and…”
“No!” I interrupted. “No! What you should have is the authority to stop your child dead in his tracks at the sound of your voice, and their disregard for your authority as a parent has taught them that your voice doesn’t matter. And it damn near cost him his life.”
She had nothing.
I went on, calmly, “But you didn’t say that to them.”
“No.”
“And what did your husband say to them?”
“Nothing. That’s the problem.”
“That’s only half the problem. Your kids aren’t the only ones who have learned that your voice doesn’t matter.”
She dropped her head, “You’re right.”
“Keep your head up,” I said. “You learned a long time ago that when someone addresses you sternly, the thing to do is look down. That’s wrong. You’re not being punished. You’re being educated. That’s a good thing. The right thing to do is to look interested, so keep your eyes up as if you’re taking it in.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s ok. It’s what you’ve been taught. We need to un-teach that. We only have a little bit of time to find your Mother.”
“My mother?”
“No, not your mother. Your Mother–that instinctive thing inside of you–your Mama Bear mentality–your Mother. Now, what did your husband say to you about this whole snake thing?”
“He basically said the same thing–that I should have been watching him closer. He got mad and threw stuff. He broke the little fruit bowl thing that… I told him he wasn’t being fair. He knows we can’t–short of keeping them on a leash…”
The earlier pacing suddenly made a lot more sense.
“Ok, so he chose their side of the argument. That’s ok. It’s a good argument. It’s true–if you had been close enough to stop him, you would have been able to physically stop him, but that’s not the point. Do you think grandma could have physically stopped him before he got to the snake?”
“She wouldn’t have to.”
“That’s the point! That’s your argument! They’re trying to blame you for not physically stopping him when the whole point is that you shouldn’t have to.”
“Exactly.”
“What?”
“I mean, yeah, exactly.”
“I can hardly hear you. Isn’t this important to you?”
“Yes.”
“Then say, ‘exactly,’ like you mean it.”
“Exactly,” she said loudly.
“Exactly!” I said louder.
“Exactly!”
“Damn right. When you raise your voice, that means listen!”
“Exactly!”
“You don’t have to scream hysterically. You just speak firmly.”
“Yes.”
“And if anyone disobeys your firm voice, there’s going to be trouble.”
“Damn right!”
“This is not a negotiable voice. These are not negotiable terms.”
“Non-negotiable.”
“That’s your Mama Bear voice.”
“That’s right. These are my kids. I’m the Mama bear.”
I don’t know when the fist bump took the place of the high five, but this wasn’t a fist bump moment. This was a high five event.
“Ok,” I said, “Now, what’s going on with Papa Bear?”
“He’s probably going crazy right now-worrying about us.”
“Ok, well, that’s his punishment for not having your back when he should have. But, we need to give him a call and let him off the hook now. Do you have a phone?”
“Yeah. Dammit, what do I say?”
“When I first started out as a plumber, they’d always send me out with another tech so I could learn the ropes, you know? Now, I already knew a lot about plumbing, but not everything, so I appreciated the opportunity to learn from them. One of the things I learned by going out with these more experienced techs is that a lot of these techs new about plumbing, but didn’t know much about people.
I was on a call with a guy named Carl, once, and it was an older mobile home in a mobile home park. There was water coming from the ground outside near the main shut-off and meter. Now, if the leaky pipe is before the meter, then the park had to pay for the repair, but if the leak was after the meter, then it was the customer’s responsibility because they own everything after the meter.
Now, Carl was pretty sure the leak was after the meter, and that meant the homeowner was going to be on the hook for the bill. I was pretty sure the leak was before the meter, and I put up a pretty good argument for why I thought it was. Still, Carl was unconvinced, so when we went inside to tell the customer what we suspected, he began to tell her it was impossible to tell if the leak was on her side of the meter or not, but I interrupted and said it was definitely on her side.”
“Ok…”
“She asked how much it was going to cost, and she said to fix it.”
“So… I don’t get it. What’s the point of telling me this?”
“She also told us that the last two companies that came out to look said they couldn’t tell who was going to be responsible for the fix, so she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to pay to fix the problem if it wasn’t her responsibility, so until she knew what to do, she didn’t know what to do.”
“Yeah, that makes sense, but that doesn’t really tell me what I need to do.”
“I don’t think you’re looking at this from the right perspective. In this situation, you’re not the lady who doesn’t know what to do; you’re the plumber.”
“I’m the plumber?”
“Yes, and you know exactly what you need to do. You need to fix the damn leak.”
“Well, who’s the lady with the mobile home—in my situation?”
“Everyone else.”
“Everyone.”
“Yes. First, your husband is the homeowner. He doesn’t know what to do, so he’s making mistakes. You talk to him first. You tell him, in no uncertain terms, that the problem is what you think it is. Then the two of you talk to your in-laws and you tell them, in no uncertain terms, that the problem is what you think it is. Then the four of you talk to your children, and you tell them, in no uncertain terms, that your voice and your husband’s voice are the supreme voices in the universe–second only to God.”
“I like that.”
“You should. That’s the way it should be. Everyone needs certainty and clarity to know exactly what to do. Differing voices create uncertainty, and uncertainty creates options. Jax thought he had the option of listening to you or not. Now, you and Carl the Plumber, your husband, need to always approach your children and his parents with one voice. Good or bad, right or wrong, you have to be unified in your voice or they will play you against each other until one of you gives them the answer they’re looking for, and the other is ignored, and every relationship in your family will be strained with resentment.”
“That’s exactly what’s happening now.”
“Then turn your phone on and call Carl.”
“I can do this.”
“Of course, you can. You know, you’re all new to these roles you’re playing. You’re a new mom, he’s a new dad, and his parents are new at being grandparents. They’re great parents, I’m sure, and they should never stop being parents to their children, and that includes you. You can’t really blame them for stepping into the parent role—they know it well—they’re good at it, and you need the help. They can teach you a lot about how to raise your kids—they just can’t raise them for you.”
She reached for her pocket. “Wait, how did you know my phone was off?”
“Because it hasn’t rung once since we’ve been talking.”
“Yeah, I turned it off because he keeps trying to call and text and I can’t–I just need to be able to think. He needs to just leave me alone so can think.”
“If he was gone and took the kids, would you stop calling?”
“No.”
“Ok, so he’s doing exactly what you would do. That’s good. He should be commended for that. So, let’s turn on the phone and…”
“I’m afraid to see what he said.”
“It doesn’t matter what he said. His wife and kids are gone. He’s scared. He’s angry. He’s liable to have said just about anything. Imagine what you would have said.”
“I know, but…”
“Was he saying ugly stuff when you last looked?”
“No.”
“Well, then, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.”
She produced a phone from her pocket and we waited for it to boot up.
“You look,” she said, holding it out to me.
I considered a few options. “Tell you what, if you have me look, I’m going to delete anything ugly so you don’t ever have to see it, but I’m going to tell you, either way, that there was nothing ugly said, but then you’ll never know if he did or not. You have to choose.”
I’ll admit, I was surprised and impressed by her choice.
She made the call and I tried to walk away, but she stopped me. I’m glad she did, but at the same time, I wish she would have put the thing on speaker, because the side I heard was so absolutely stunning, I feel slighted in that I only heard one side of the conversation. She was firm without demanding, insistent without ultimatum, vulnerable without weakness. I was able to sneak away at one point while she was lost in the conversation.
“I’m with a friend. Where are you?
Good. Did you tell Mom and Dad?
Good. I wouldn’t blame you if you did. We need to have a talk with them, but first I need to have a chat with you…