Lucy

Lucy is tall and statuesque. I don't think she'd look good in a bikini, though. I can remember Lucy when I was a little girl fifty years ago. Even back then, she would not have sported a bikini with style. Back then, she was tattered and torn and had lost some of her statuesque beauty that astonishes people today. 

I don't know why Lucy stayed around for so many years. God knows, there were times when Lucy looked like she would crumble and fall at any moment, but the old girl held on and was still there fifty years later when I decided to visit her.


I wonder if Lucy remembers me? I walked by her every summer day for years and often stopped to wonder about her. She'd look at me as if the wonderment went both ways. We'd stare at each other as time stood still, and my 7-year-old brain pondered Lucy's existence.  

Today, when I visited Lucy, it dawned on me that she's much older than I, but looks much better since her facelift. In some ways, I think Lucy kind of mirrors my own life. Well, maybe I don't weigh quite as much as Lucy, but I feel like I've weathered the storms as she has.  As we all can learn from our elders, I, too, learned a lot from Lucy.  

Lucy loves the beach. I, too, love the beach. I love the beach when it's bright and sunny with calm, soothing surf. I also love it when the storm clouds roll in and roil the powerful waves into crashing sand pulverizers.  The beach reminds me of my grandma. Thinking about grandma reminds me of Lucy.

Thus, I've come full circle to be reminded of grandma, the beach, and Lucy. When I first visited Lucy, grandma was holding my hand. Now, as a grandma, my age-spotted hand would be holding a young hand, and I'd explain like my grandma did, that Lucy is a great old girl who has weathered many storms.

I didn't have my grandma on this day. Well, maybe, I did. I think her spirit was with me as I gazed up at Lucy while the sun was shining so brightly that she practically glowed in the early morning hue. It brought tears to my eyes, reminiscing about Lucy and grandma. Two old gals who stood the test of time. I've joined the "old gals" club now. I'm glad I've made it this far. I'm just as happy to see that Lucy has too.

Lucy's story didn't start where she stands today. She took a long, tedious journey to end up where she is. Her journey required many helpers along the way. People stood by her and protected her as she made her arduous journey to where she stands now. Lucy's journey is how I think I am related to her. I've needed many people to stand by me on my often challenging trek through life. I, too, have stood by them.

My daughter and my sisters were with me on this day when we visited the old gal. My sisters and I drove down memory lane through all the towns that bordered Lucy's abode. We lived in many of them during our long hot summer romps back and forth to the beach with grandma. I told my daughter about how much Lucy was a part of our growing-up lives. It made me sad that my daughter, Jenn, could only look up at Lucy since using a wheelchair prevented her from enjoying all that Lucy had to offer.

Life's like that sometimes. Sometimes, we are participants, and sometimes we're spectators. Occasionally, we want to be participants when we can only be spectators. Often, we wait an entire lifetime to be a participant. Today, I could participate in the first time experience of touching this old gal who I could only gaze at as a child. Some fifty years ago, Lucy was protected behind a secure fence from curious children like myself.  

When I came home from visiting Lucy, I brought a magnet with her picture on it for my granddaughter.  

As I handed her the souvenir, she laughed at me. "Nana, she giggled, why did you bring me a picture of an elephant?"  

"Well, Devyn," I said as I put her on my lap, "She's not just any old elephant. She's Lucy, the Margate Elephant, and she is older than me!"

"Older than you!" The surprise on her face made me laugh.

"Yes, older than me." I said, "I used to walk by her every day when I was a little girl about your age, but she didn't look this good back then."

"Lucy was made new again," I said. "We'll all be made new again someday."  

"That's silly, Nana!" Laughed my granddaughter, "You can't be made new unless I paint you and get rid of the wrinkles."

I thought about that for a minute or two. Finally, I said, "No, Nana doesn't want to be painted, and I don't want to get rid of the wrinkles either."  

"Why not?" Asked my little inquisitor.

"Because the wrinkles are what let me be part of the Old Gal's club with Lucy. If you're in the Old Gal's club, it means you're wise."  

"Is Lucy wise?" My granddaughter's beautiful blue eyes pierced my heart at that moment.

"Yes, Devyn," I said, "Lucy is wise because she has weathered many storms, and she still stands tall and smiles because she was made new."  

"I don't get it, Nana.  You're not new like Lucy."

"That's right, Devyn, you don't get it yet," I answered, "but, you'll get it when you become a member of the Old Gal's club."

Someday When

Someday When

Needles dripping with false promises fill the emptiness of so many woebegone lives. The up-in-flames hopefulness of the four-year-old fireman answering the walkie-talkie's frantic cry for help. The erased dreams of the six-year-old teacher with her classroom full of unruly stuffed animals. The avid sticker collector, the aspiring artist, the talented musician, the creative inventor, and the earnest detective - all expectantly waiting to "grow up" to reach their "someday when." 

"Someday, when I'm a vet, I'll save all the horses in the world." 

"Someday, when I'm a great gymnast, I'll be in the Olympics!" 

"Someday, when I'm a baseball player, I'll be in the World Series!" 

The little would-be teachers and firefighters wait and listen to their parents talk about someday when they go off to college, and they wonder when that "someday" will be theirs. Meanwhile, the parents encourage the hopeful children to pursue the possibility rainbow full of color and joy. 

Never did any of the tots aspire to reach emptiness. Never did their parents wish for sleepless nights and sorrowful days. So, why did it come to this? Why did these confident strivers' "someday" become "no days?"

The somedays are long gone - replaced with a cruel vacuum that sucks the joy and depletes the soul. They once craved to feel again. Now, they strive not to feel the loss of someday when. They crave the tantalizing needle that seduces them into the deception of "not feeling," if only for a moment. 

There's no feeling, hope, ambition, or daydreams that may come true. The needle claims another someday when. It tumbles another dreamer into a soulless nightmare. 

And, again, we ask, "Why?" Why are so many young star-gazers slipping into oblivion and sliding into the abyss? Nirvana isn't found in a needle, we tell them. Yet, it still claims young hearts and minds with reckless abandon. 

The destroyer. The ransacker. The demolisher home-wrecker spreads its lies and sows its seeds in young hearts everywhere. We cannot fight the exterminator if we don't acknowledge the source of its roots. The roots have gained a strong foothold in our decaying, godless society.

A fractured bone cannot offer support, nor can a fractured society support its most vulnerable persons. We are a country on the brink, and the root system is deeply embedded in division, strife, and discord. Fatherless families, run-down neighborhoods, black vs. white, rich vs. poor, liberal vs. conservative, woman vs. man, gay vs. straight, MAGA hat vs. non-MAGA hat, god-fearing vs. godless, gun-owning vs. non-gun owning, hopeful vs. hopeless. 

Hopeful people look forward to the future, so they have children, love them, nurture them, and dream of someday. Hopeless people cry over a lost future. To the hopeless, the future is sown in tears. 

As a parent who has lost a child to the hopeless promise of a needle, I still want the future of this country to be full of "someday when" and not sown in tears.