Dear Paul Mahoney,

I bet you're surprised to see your real name on the internet. True, I usually follow my own rat rule in these things, which can be summed up in the words "first, do no harm".

The thing is, they are not releasing the name of the bus driver who abandoned the little girl on the side of a road. They released the name of the little girl, sure. Branded her a victim for life. No harm there.

Well, I gave that some thought. And I realized, I could counter the dark corner of secrecy by outing YOU. I hope you don't mind.

You are a real person, and you did something noble at an age when nobility and kindness are almost out of reach. I thought that deserved the credit of your own name.

You won't know me by this name. So let me help you. You went to Jr. High school in Fairfield County, Connecticut during the late 70's. Your house was second to the end of a long bus route, kind of in the woods, and for the last 15 minutes each day it was just you and me.

You were popular. You looked like a young Paul McCartney, a little. You were comfortable in your skin, with a quick sense of humor and a big heart. You were known for being a flirt, but a good guy. You were into music, and as soon as the bus was a little emptied you'd convince the bus driver to turn up the radio.

I thought you were the coolest person I knew.

Conversely, I was pretty beat up. The kids bullied me something fierce for a while. Over the months, it softened to a dull roar; I made a few friends and had someone to each lunch with.

But I hated school, Paul. Counted the days in between the holidays.

At the beginning of the year, you were strictly a "back of the bus" guy and I was at the front. I would curl up behind the bus driver for safety. You'd expand, somehow. Taking up the entire bench seat with your arms and legs and white smile.

One day, in the crisp end of autumn, you yelled to me. It took you a week to convince me that it was all right for me to move to the back of the bus once it was just us and the driver.

You were a bit of the firefly, you liked the attention. You liked having someone to talk to.

You made me laugh.

I had girls in my life. Neighbors, cousins, girlfriends at school. I'd had crushes. But you were the first guy to ever hold a conversation with me without your mother forcing the relationship.

Did I mention you made me laugh, Paul?

You used to use your hands to tell the stories. I never saw so much happy personality tied up in so much testosterone before.

I wrote about you in my diary. Then I destroyed the pages because I had no privacy back then. But I didn't forget your name.

One day, in the spring, someone had really gotten to me. I couldn't face you, because I was crying. Huddled behind that chain-smoking bus driver, staring doggedly out a window that only opened from on top, and pretending not to notice that my cheeks were chapped. And wet.

You tapped me on the shoulder, and I still couldn't face you.

You'd moved. To the front of the bus. For me. And it only made things worse.

You said "Come on, now".

You said "What's wrong?"

You sat behind me. Until it was time for you to get off.

The next morning, you got on. You took my hand and led me to the back of the bus. You sat me against the window and took the aisle. And as the stops piled up, and disbelieving kids punched your shoulder, and you didn't move from my side until we got to school.

Then you silently exited, melding into your crowd.

So for a few weeks until school ended, I sat at the back. Everyday. With you.

No one said a word. That was a lot of power you had in the Darwinian ooze of adolescent political structure.

Why were you so kind? I guess it doesn't matter anymore but at the time, it mattered a lot. It was a domino that got knocked in the right direction, and my life was better for it.

The last day of school, you squeezed my hand and didn't look back. You said goodbye to the driver. I never knew what happened to you. I always kind of wondered.

Dear Paul Mahoney,

You were the only good thing that ever happened to me on a bus.

I hope you're having a splendid life.

Thank you. more...

Posted by: Elizabeth at 01:34 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 1196 words, total size 14 kb.

Note: This is my entry for Jay Allen's cool Blogging for Books contest. The assigned topic: best or worst experience you've ever had working for someone else. I picked "all of the above". Jay has said that for this we should get our funny going. And I tried. But I have written, instead, what my husband is calling "A funeral hymn for a dream". I hope you forgive me.
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Late at night, I'm holding on for tomorrow.

My son woke up this morning, and came looking for me. I wasn't there. He asked my husband "Mommy not home yet?" Because he hadn't seen me in a day. Because I came home so late last night and left so early this morning. I told myself, when I heard this with a flinch at lunch, that I would make it up to him.

I left the customer's office at 3PM but it took 2 hours to get home. I found my son, wired from watching TV all day. His teeth still unbrushed. I found my husband, writhing with the flu and a fever and hanging on by a thread.

I meant to help. I meant to.

But I had to collapse for a few hours before I could even remember my name.

I've become the kind of parent that I can't look in the eye. I cringe to think how easily I sometimes unplug from my son's life.

This isn't how it was supposed to be.

Growing up, I knew my life's ambition was to be a mom. I played teacher. I played author. I played rock star. Inside I knew being a mother was the one true thing I wanted to do with my days and my nights. Knew it like some people know they want to be astronauts, or doctors.

I also knew that paying jobs and me, well, let's just say that we didn't get along so well.

My first job? Babysitter. 13 years old. Let the popcorn catch fire and their kitchen was never the same. Paint took care of the most of this discoloration but the smell lingered for about 5 years.

My second job? Grocery store. Cashier. I stank. The manager was a family friend and he would regularly key into a register with my code and work it, in order to bing up my all-important "Items Per Minute" average.

Then my uncle died and I took off some time for the funeral. Then I asked for some more time off to go to his funeral again. Naturally, they had to fire me.

I actually felt bad for them when my father went in and demanded they expunge my records. How could they know that the shipping company had temporarily lost my uncle, necessitating an actual second funeral.

Even I thought it sounded like I was making it up.

My third job? At a restaurant. On my first day, I succeeded in committing a series of errors that, cumulatively, was nothing short of felonious.

But even after using a paper cup on the shake machine (to save time) instead of the metal one and spraying an entire line of customers with chocolate shake. Even after dropping the cash register tray on the floor, causing a scramble for money all over the restaurant. Even after exploding the top of the iced tea dispenser. Even after spilling the oil from the fryer and causing a nice cook to head to the the hospital with a possible concussion...

...Even after all that, they made me keep coming back.

Like my own "Twilight Zone" meets "Groundhog Day". The manager was my English teacher. Clearly on some kind of a Yoda trip. I, however, am no kind of a Luke Skywalker.

My first job in college? Campus tour guide. Accidentally led a group of alumni into a wedding in progress at the campus chapel.

My first job out of college? File clerk at a factory. Walking around and around a table collating a handout. And around. In nylons. In summer. In a break room. In a factory. With, you know, beefy men around. Taking LOTS of breaks. And trying to pat me.

My next job? As a temp in a trucking company, as a receptionist. I was fired after 4 days and called into my Temp Manager's office. "Elizabeth," the woman said sternly. "Don't wear your skirts so tight. Or so... yellow. And only one button undone on your blouse."

"Can it be the bottom button or does it have to be the top?" I snarked. She fired me on the spot.

Eventually, I became a chaplain. The kind of warm fuzzy job that didn't include me being near money, electricity, food or food by-products, or hornball truckers.

I regularly worked projects with other charitable agencies. One time a group of us was making our way into one of the Projects here in Chicago, when a big guy tackled me to the ground. He covered me with his sweaty body and kept telling me to shut up.

I screamed and never noticed the rest of our little group huddled nearby.

"Quiet!" He ordered in my ear. "Stay still for God's sake. Can't you see we're being shot at?"

It wasn't for another 10 years that I finally "fit" somewhere. I intuitively understood MegaCorp. It was like all these bizarre half-skills that I'd acquired all my life suddenly knit together to make me really good at something.

Hard? Yes.

Crying in the bathroom, hoping no one notices me. That kind of hard.

Learning to swim with the corporate sharks, I had a few bites taken out of me. But I am good at this. I am better at this than anyone I know outside my corporate life. I want to sing the chorus from Handel's Messiah. I love this job! I LOVE this job!

And looking back, I would have done it for a decade, maybe a lifetime, happily; stuffing my first dream away.

Then Bear came along.

And in an instant, I remembered why I was put on this Earth. I was born to be his mother.

And I dropped Mega like a hot rock.

Once he was in my arms, I knew certainly what I had known as a dream growing up. Motherhood was the only job I want as a full-time occupation. Luckily for me I had 7 months. 7 months where our plans worked and my job description was two words: Bear's Mother.

There isn't a word for how my soul felt. Happy is the pastel wannabe of the word. Amazing is a dim cousin.

Then circumstances changed and I was suddenly scrambling to nail down a paycheck job. Thank God, Mega took me back. Thank God, I do well at Mega. Thank God, Mega pays me well in return and set me up to work from home.

But there are days when I have to leave before he wakes. Days I am still gone when he goes to sleep. And I don't get to pick the days. Sometimes those are the days when Bear really needs me. One time it was the day he took his first steps. This is not Mega's fault. These are my choices.

Even though it's the only job I ever wanted, it's not my only job.

That means after doing dozens of jobs really, really, really badly I find myself torn between 2 jobs I love.

Well, maybe "torn" is not the right word. "Torn" implies that I am tugged between knowing which one I should do. I know I should be with my son.

What has me "torn" is the work. Ripped up inside over increments of hours, when my ability to prioritize is hog-tied. When the almighty dollar comes first and I twist in agony waiting to get back to who is really important.

God help me, I have not turned out to be the mother I could have been or the mother I wanted to be.

I am trying, instead, to be the best mother I can be.

I'm making decisions in the creases and sometimes? Too often? I am getting it wrong. Those are the times, like right now - like at this very moment in the deep of the night -that I just pray and hold on.

Hold on for tomorrow and try again. more...

Posted by: Elizabeth at 06:58 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1618 words, total size 9 kb.