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    Chicken Soup for the Soul: All in the Family: 101 Incredible Stories about Our Funny, Quirky, Lovable & "Dysfunctional" Families
    Chicken Soup for the Soul: All in the Family: 101 Incredible Stories about Our Funny, Quirky, Lovable & "Dysfunctional" Families
    Chicken Soup for the Soul: All in the Family: 101 Incredible Stories about Our Funny, Quirky, Lovable & "Dysfunctional" Families
    Ebook595 pages6 hours

    Chicken Soup for the Soul: All in the Family: 101 Incredible Stories about Our Funny, Quirky, Lovable & "Dysfunctional" Families

    By Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Amy Newmark and Susan M. Heim

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    About this ebook

    Readers will be amused, comforted, and encouraged, by stories about “dysfunctional” families just like their own, and will realize we are all alike and we all have the same family issues. A great quirky and fun holiday book.

    Almost everyone thinks their own family is “dysfunctional “or at least has a dysfunctional member or two. With stories about wacky yet lovable relatives, holiday meltdowns, and funny foibles along with more serious stories about abuse, controlling family members, and flare-ups, Chicken Soup for the Soul: All in the Family shows readers that they aren’t alone.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChicken Soup for the Soul
    Release dateFeb 8, 2011
    ISBN9781611591446
    Chicken Soup for the Soul: All in the Family: 101 Incredible Stories about Our Funny, Quirky, Lovable & "Dysfunctional" Families
    Author

    Jack Canfield

    Jack Canfield, America’s #1 Success Coach, is the cocreator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series, which includes forty New York Times bestsellers, and coauthor with Gay Hendricks of You’ve GOT to Read This Book! An internationally renowned corporate trainer, Jack has trained and certified over 4,100 people to teach the Success Principles in 115 countries. He is also a podcast host, keynote speaker, and popular radio and TV talk show guest. He lives in Santa Barbara, California.

    Read more from Jack Canfield

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      Book preview

      Chicken Soup for the Soul - Jack Canfield

      Chicken Soup for the Soul: All in the Family

      101 Incredible Stories about Our Funny, Quirky, Lovable & Dysfunctional Families

      Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Amy Newmark, Susan M. Heim

      Published by Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, LLC www.chickensoup.com

      www.SimonandSchuster.com

      Copyright © 2009 by Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

      CSS, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and its Logo and Marks are trademarks of Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing LLC.

      The publisher gratefully acknowledges the many publishers and individuals who granted Chicken Soup for the Soul permission to reprint the cited material.

      Front cover illustration courtesy of Jerry Miller. Back cover illustration courtesy of John Rockwell. Interior spot illustration courtesy of Jerry Miller. Interior photo courtesy of iStockphoto.com/NinaMalyna

      Cover and Interior Design & Layout by Pneuma Books, LLC

      For more info on Pneuma Books, visit www.pneumabooks.com

      Distributed to the booktrade by Simon & Schuster. SAN: 200-2442

      Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      (Prepared by The Donohue Group)

      Chicken soup for the soul : all in the family : 101 incredible stories about our funny, quirky, lovable & dysfunctional families / [compiled by] Jack Canfield... [et al].

      p. ; cm.

      ISBN: 978-1-935096-39-9

      eISBN: 978-1-6115-9144-6

      1. Family--Literary collections. 2. Family--Anecdotes. I. Canfield, Jack, 1944-

      PN6071.F2 C455 2009

      810.8/02/03525 2009934271

      PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

      on acid ∞ free paper

      18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

      Contents

      Introduction

      ~Eccentrics Are Us~

      1. On Preserving the Family Plastic, Chantal Panozzo

      2. My Obsessive-Compulsive Darling, Kay Johnson

      3. The Cleaning Lady, John MacDonald

      4. Imaginary Friends, Dwan Reed

      5. Just Because, Tonya L. Alton

      6. Never Late, Joe Rector

      7. My Beloved Crazy Relatives, Nori Thomas

      8. Call Me Crazy, Betsy S. Franz

      9. The Family Collection, Chantal Panozzo

      ~In-Laws and Outlaws~

      10. The Blue Cooler, Anne Crawley

      11. Trickster-in-Law, Pat Maloney

      12. On Esther Time, J.M. Cornwell

      13. Sharpening the Pointy Hat, Ali Monroe

      14. Spring Cleaning, Janie Dempsey Watts

      15. The Power of Pasta, Anne Crawley

      16. The Puzzle, Cynthia Morningstar

      17. Better or Worse, Aggie Welsh

      18. To Each Her Own, Nancy M. Peterson

      ~Family Vacations and Reunions~

      19. Judith Who? Judith Marks-White

      20. A Class Act, Beth Levine

      21. We’ll Have Fun Yet, Stephen J. Lyons

      22. Al Fresco, Marianne LaValle-Vincent

      23. Braving Vacation, Amanda Eaker

      24. The Lost Shoe, Ken Swarner

      25. Who Are All These Strange People? April Knight

      26. Hitching behind a Hearse, Lynn Maddalena Menna

      27. A Sweet Family Secret, Timothy Martin

      ~Forgiveness~

      28. Meeting the Man Inside, R.D.

      29. The Trashcan Incident, Ron Kaiser

      30. Brotherly Love, C.H.

      31. Loving Without Words, Delores Liesner

      32. Twiddling Thumbs and Drawing Daisies, Jilliann McEwen

      33. Right from Wrong, Michael T. Smith

      34. Stubborn Love, CJ Hines

      35. And the Beat Goes On, Kay Conner Pliszka

      36. Quality Time, Betsy S. Franz

      ~Thanks for the Memories~

      37. Commodious Memories, Carol Huff

      38. Grandma Lillie’s Red Cadillac, Melanie Adams Hardy

      39. Keeping the Peas, Avis P. Drucker

      40. The Burial Plots, Anne Merrigan

      41. Nana, the Passive/Aggressive Baker, Annie Mannix

      42. Butterfly Kisses, Marsha D. Teeling

      43. The Sauerkraut Cure, Lori Hein

      44. Dish Night, Judy Lee Green

      45. Wedding Adventures, John P. Buentello

      46. A Wedding to Die For, Diana Savage

      ~Putting the Fun in Dysfunctional~

      47. Riverbed Fever, Carolyn A. Hall

      48. Shoes, Glorious Shoes, Cuauhtémoc Q. Kish

      49. Making a Stink, Toni L. Martin

      50. Spider Raid, Susan Farr-Fahncke

      51. Stevie and the Outhouse, Michael Kilpatrick

      52. The Unkindest Cut, Perry P. Perkins

      53. Blended by a Snake, C. Hope Clark

      54. What Did You Say? Mimi Greenwood Knight

      55. My Big Fat Irish Hospitalization, Hallie Hastings

      56. Family Antics in Fancy Places, Sharon L. Andersen

      ~Family Secrets~

      57. A New Brother, Danielle Rockwell

      58. Off Course, Patti Lawson

      59. Grandma’s Beads, Marijoyce Porcelli

      60. A Tiny Piece of Paper, Marsha D. Teeling

      61. My Missing Person, Mary Thomas

      62. Where’s My Baby? Jo Rogers

      63. Keeping Secrets, V.K. Lamb

      64. The Human Spectrum, James McMillan

      65. Mendacious Miriam, Rebecca Olker

      ~Happy, Horrible Holidays~

      66. Merry Christmas, I Broke into Your House, Tolly Moseley

      67. A Hand-Me-Down Prom Dress, Cuauhtémoc Q. Kish

      68. Is Everybody Smiling? Andrea Langworthy

      69. Thanksgiving with Mary Jane, Anastasia M. Ashman

      70. A Third Scent, Cora Rogers

      71. The Christmas Cat-astrophe, Christy Westbrook

      72. Easter Is Over, Tina Marie McGrevy

      73. Mom’s Empty Glass, Trish Bonsall

      ~Reunited~

      74. Never Too Late for Family, Robynn Ashwood

      75. Emma’s Castle, Rosemary Merritt

      76. Maybe Next Time, Mariela Tsakiris

      77. A Daughter Moves Back Home, Edward A. Joseph

      78. Finding Marie, Dallas Kuzinich

      79. The Hug, Sandi Knight

      80. There Is a Tree, Kimberly Anne Reedy

      81. Sisters by Choice, Betty Bogart

      ~Brothers and Sisters~

      82. My Homeless Brother, Eva Juliuson

      83. They’re Listening, June Waters

      84. Sanity and Soda, Susan LaMaire

      85. Sharing Everything, Libby Hires

      86. Our Last Goodbye, Tina O’Reilly

      87. That Did It! Ben Kennedy

      88. Our Little Man, Sara Wessling

      89. We Buried My Sister Alive, Melissa Pannell

      90. Normally Dysfunctional, Theresa Hupp

      91. Bridezilla, Laurie Sontag

      ~Parents and Kids~

      92. Always an Adventure, Judith Marks-White

      93. The Perfect Mom for Cooper, Kay Klebba

      94. The Classics, Carol Genengels

      95. I Will Always Be Your Son, Ramona Watson

      96. Door Man, Tara Schellenberg

      97. Flower Cower, Courtney Rae Wick

      98. A Nice Italian Boy, L.A. Kennedy

      99. A Full House, Sarah Hamaker

      100. Cheers, Dennis Ko

      101. Like Mother, Like..., Sapna Manoj

      Meet Our Contributors

      Meet Our Authors

      Thank You

      About Chicken Soup for the Soul

      Introduction

      You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.

      ~Desmond Tutu

      Family. One simple word can mean so many things! What do you think about when you hear the word family? Love. Sibling rivalry. Blessings. Memories. Secrets. Fun. Security. Pain. Wisdom. Drama.

      Families are fascinating to us, whether they’re ours or someone else’s. Perhaps that’s why so many TV shows and movies, both comedies and dramas, focus on families. Most of us can relate to the adventures of the Griswold family as they take one disastrous family vacation after another or celebrate the holidays with (lovable but crazy) relatives. And, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, we usually come to the realization at some point in our lives that there’s no place like home.

      Our families complete us. They offer acceptance. They provide a history. They shape who we are, the good and the bad. They are, as Desmond Tutu says, God’s gift to you. Sometimes we may have to tear off a lot of wrapping paper to find the goodness inside! But think about how boring life would be without family.

      Another amazing thing about families is that they’re all so different and yet the same. They’re complicated and yet simple. They’re a burden, but also a blessing. They’re often the source of our greatest joys, but also our deepest pain. They can build us up and tear us down. Families add richness and complexity to our lives.

      Clearly, our families are all. Perhaps that’s why we received several thousand stories for this book. Yes, thousands! In reading these stories (and, indeed, we read every single one), we wiped away a lot of tears, fell off our chairs from laughter, and were deeply moved by the courage and strength displayed by so many. It wasn’t easy narrowing the selection down to 101 stories.

      Many of the stories we received for this book (and weren’t able to use) will show up in other Chicken Soup for the Soul books because, if you’ve been reading Chicken Soup for the Soul books for a while, you’ve probably figured out that we like families a lot. We’ve got books about mothers and sons, dads and daughters, twins and multiples, preteens and teens, grandparents and grandchildren, and much more. And we’re going to keep publishing family stories because they really are central to our existence as human beings.

      So, gather your loved ones around you and crack open this book. See if you recognize any of your siblings in the Brothers and Sisters chapter. Laugh along with the characters you’ll read about in Putting the Fun in Dysfunctional and Eccentrics Are Us. Revisit family celebrations in Happy, Horrible Holidays and Family Vacations and Reunions. Or take a walk on the serious side in Forgiveness or Family Secrets. There’s something for everyone in Chicken Soup for the Soul: All in the Family.

      ~Susan and Amy

      Eccentrics Are Us

      Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and of family disagreements.

      ~Queen Elizabeth II

      On Preserving the Family Plastic

      All marriages are happy. It’s the living together afterward that causes all the trouble.

      ~Raymond Hull

      I’m visiting home for the first time in six months, and my mother is sitting outside on the concrete stoop. What happened to the outdoor furniture? I ask, hoping to join her on this pleasant July day and drink some raspberry lemonade on the concrete slab that constitutes my father’s version of a deck.

      My mother shakes her head.

      I don’t want to talk about it, she says gloomily.

      I can’t imagine what could possibly be so bad, for even if her two plastic white chairs and matching table were stolen, they were ten-year-old grocery store specials worth only a few dollars.

      We got a new set from Rob, she says hesitantly, after a while.

      When I asked where the set was, she just points to the garage.

      And the old set’s in the basement, she calls after me, as I go to investigate.

      But I don’t see any new outdoor furniture in the garage, only big trash bags. However, I do find the old set in the basement and take it upstairs, piece by piece. After all, it is summer in Chicago. What could be so wrong about a little outdoor furniture?

      My mother protests when she sees me carrying it out, but I am determined to have somewhere to sit outside, so I persevere.

      That night, after my father returns from work and we sit down to dinner, I look out at the porch and see three black garbage bags, each carefully covering the plastic furniture.

      And then I understand my mother’s distress.

      For as long as I can remember, my father has wrapped things in plastic. As a child, I thought it was normal. He kept his phone wrapped in not one, but two plastic zip-lock bags. He kept the bocce ball set not only in the special Eddie Bauer canvas case it came in, but also kept each ball carefully wrapped in its original plastic bag. He kept souvenir T-shirts in their plastic wrappings while wearing threadbare polos from the 1970s. It’s a miracle I was allowed to venture into the world without being wrapped in bubble wrap.

      Dad, there’s a reason outdoor furniture is called ‘outdoor,’ I try to reason with him.

      But this concept escapes him, so I continue.

      It looks like you live next to a trash dump. I can’t even see your flowers anymore, I say.

      Now do you see? says my mother wearily. I’d rather have nothing on the porch than have to look at big black trash bags all day.

      My father looks at us like we are crazy and counters with the fact that the chairs would get dirty and wet otherwise.

      I point out that they are ten years old, plastic and worth a total of $10. Plus, they ruin the ambiance of the entire backyard.

      Instead of agreeing with reason, he loses his temper and stomps out of the room while my mother heads over to the neighbor’s to sit on a porch that looks like something other than a trash dump.

      The next day, I start to tell my mother that I agree that my father has finally lost it, once and for all, when something in my parents’ bedroom catches my eye. It is a drawing of a caterpillar made out of hearts that I had done as a five-year-old. There it was, faded, but in otherwise perfect condition—proudly preserved in a plastic sandwich bag on my dad’s dresser. I pick it up and hold it in my hand. Suddenly, my attitude toward my father’s plastic obsession becomes slightly more tolerant. I grab a book, head outside, peel off a garbage bag, and enjoy the summer sun, sitting in an old plastic chair that looks brand-new.

      ~Chantal Panozzo

      My Obsessive-Compulsive Darling

      March to the beat of your own drum.

      ~English Proverb

      I first started noticing it soon after we were married. It was important to Fred that the sponge always be placed in its home spot on the sink after use—the exact same place every time. I thought he was just a neatnik or his training in the Navy made him super-organized. I discovered that putting the sponge in the wrong spot on the sink was a great way to get him flustered. It was fun, and he was really cute when he was flustered!

      Through the years, other habits began to surface that I questioned. Every night before going to bed, he would check to make sure that the doors were locked. He did this by locking and unlocking each door several times. I learned that there was no point in my locking the doors at all before I went to bed because he’d be unlocking them anyway to check them later.

      He sorted his socks by color in his sock drawer, and sorted his underwear by size and type in his underwear drawer. He couldn’t just loosely place his belongings into his drawers like I did. Mine would start out organized, but not stay that way for long. He needed the two largest drawers in our chest of drawers so that he could separate his things, even though I was the woman and had more stuff! I gave in to him because it was the path of least resistance.

      We were always late going places because his routines for getting ready took him so long, and he invariably lost track of time. I didn’t realize that he just couldn’t stop himself from following his routines religiously. If I tried to rush him, he always became flustered and upset with me. I eventually learned to keep my mouth shut and took up crocheting to help me relax while I was waiting.

      His need for control became the most obvious one year when we took a trip with my sister and brother-in-law. We traveled in a van from Phoenix to a time-share cabin in the mountains. We stuck Fred in the back of the van since I tend to get carsick when I ride in the back. My sister also stuck her boxer back there. By the time we reached the cabin, Fred was absolutely freaked out from having to stare at the dog’s butt for three hours.

      A few days later, we traveled on to Las Vegas. My sister had made the hotel reservations for us and got us a great deal. At the reception desk, Fred realized that our room was going to be on the 16th floor. I had forgotten that he doesn’t like to stay above the 7th floor because that is the highest the ladders on the fire trucks can reach. This was more serious than him not liking to stay above the 7th floor. He was actually afraid. We went up to our room and began to unpack but he kept looking out the window and fretting. Finally, he told me that he just couldn’t do this anymore and wanted to fly home immediately.

      I didn’t know how to react. Why couldn’t he just man up and get over it? Why was he making such a big deal about this? Luckily, we were able to move to a room on the 6th floor and enjoy our days in Vegas, exploring the amazing buildings of the casinos and eating until we burst.

      After that trip, I thought about what had happened. He and I had taken many vacations together, and there were never any signs of anxiety attacks. Then it hit me—he had always made all the arrangements. We always stayed in nice motels with no more than a couple of floors. He had always been in control on those trips!

      Talk about control—it even affects his eating habits. One of his favorite things to do is take a drive out in the country, sip on a Dr. Pepper and eat M&Ms. I joined him one day and, as we were driving along, the smell of his M&Ms wafted over to my side of the car and I asked for a couple. He hesitated at first and told me that it was going to mess up his system. System?! He explained that his Dr. Pepper and M&Ms had to come out even. His last M&M and last sip of Dr. Pepper had to end together. If I took some of his M&Ms, it would mess things up. It just seemed so silly that I had to laugh! Fortunately, he has been able to laugh at himself as well. Now I just tell him if I want some M&Ms before we get in the car. Of course, he needs to know the exact number. If you say a handful it messes with his mind.

      Before leaving the house, Fred always packs his pockets with the exact same items in the exact same pockets. When we go on a walk around the block, we can’t leave until he packs his pockets. His lack of spontaneity is frustrating to me, but packing his pockets is something that he has to do. One day, our youngest son fell outside and busted his chin open. Fred couldn’t just grab his keys and wallet and run out the door to take our son to the emergency room. We had to wait for him to pack his pockets.

      Now, Fred has his redeeming qualities. He is pure gold as a father and husband. No other dad could have spent more time with his children than Fred did. He was always ready to play with them and spend time with them, even when he was tired to the bone. The grandchildren love him to death and always run to him when they visit. He’s been a loving, faithful husband who has always made family his first priority. I love him dearly, in spite of his quirks.

      Yes, we have come to realize that he has obsessive-compulsive disorder. When we were first married, in the 1970s, nobody had heard of it. He has admitted to me that he cannot stop himself from going through his little routines and really wishes that he could. But now we know about it, and it’s just a part of Fred. He wouldn’t be as much fun without it! And what would the family tease him about? It’s all good-natured, of course, and it has been easy for the family to learn to live with his habits because he is so lovable otherwise. We wouldn’t do a thing to change him! And I’ve completed many beautiful afghans while waiting.

      ~Kay Johnson

      The Cleaning Lady

      You sometimes see a woman who would have made a Joan of Arc in another century and climate, threshing herself to pieces over all the mean worry of housekeeping.

      ~Rudyard Kipling

      I can’t tell you exactly when it was my aunt was bitten by the bug. As far as I can remember, that’s just the way she had always been. No one in her neat little circle of family and friends ever really made a major production over her behavior. Most of us just accepted her condition as sort of quirky in a roll-your-eyes kind of way. Upon meeting her for the first time, however, there were those who just assumed she was from a military family or spent some time herself in the armed forces. My aunt had the Windex-holstered, Swifter-toting cleaning bug. And its work was never done.

      My earliest memory of Aunt Helen is a continuous swirl of moving parts. She was half-woman, half-machine. One moment, she would be mopping the floor, and the next moment she’d be shoveling snow off the driveway before it even had time to decide whether to melt or stick. She resembled the very appliances she was so enamored of—single-minded, smooth-running, and effectively serving the home’s occupants. This polishing act was not limited to her own home. In fact, she carried the bug to our house on a daily basis. Since my parents divorced when my sister and I were quite young, my aunt felt an obligation to help out around the house. It was either the selfless act of a caring sister, or a window of opportunity that was streaky and in need of cleaning. My mother went with the latter.

      Don’t let her fool you, my mother would say. She wouldn’t miss being here for the world.

      There were days that my aunt hardly spoke a word to us when she was, as my mother would say, on the clock. Mostly, her self-imposed duties hardly interfered with our daily routine of doing homework, playing Yahtzee, or reading comic books. That is, unless my sister and I were watching Scooby-Doo in the living room when Aunt Helen came chugging through with the vacuum cleaner in high gear. We would race to pull the plug on her so as not to miss a single Zoinks! or Jinkies from Shaggy and the gang.

      Didn’t you hear that? my aunt might ask, referring to the crackling noise going up the tube before she was suddenly silenced by me or my sister. That’s dirt!

      No, my sister might calmly reply, settling into her spot on the couch. That’s popcorn.

      As kids, we never really felt a dust-speck of guilt for this voluntary servitude. We sensed she was happiest when doing her thing. So why not enjoy the benefits of a loved one’s compulsions? We never thought that maybe there just might be other forces at work behind her Mrs. Clean exterior. We were kids, after all—kids who made messes. The relationship worked great for us. Apart from vacuuming at critical times of the day like cartoon hour, the disturbances caused by Aunt Helen’s compulsions were fairly minor. While eating dinner with her mopping around us, we might occasionally feel a bump against our chair or be asked to raise our feet. However, if I spilled something on my shirt, I would be ordered to immediately hand the soiled garment over while she prepped her cleaning products and filled the kitchen sink with hot water, since time was apparently of the essence.

      My mother wasn’t one to complain about my aunt’s antiseptic behavior either. Free maid service with two kids was a blessing, and when she came home from working at a high school cafeteria all day, the last thing she wanted to do was wait on a couple more kids, even if they were her own.

      You really don’t need to organize that pantry again, my mother might say. Johnny’s uniform is grass-stained, and he has a game tomorrow.

      Oh, sure, what do you take me for? I have to get home for Bob, my aunt might shoot back, referring to my uncle, who we really only saw in her wallet and on holidays and birthdays.

      But the exchange between sisters was short-lived, lasting no longer than a puff of steam from an upturned iron. If there was a job to do, Aunt Helen would do it and do it right. Uncle Bob could wait a few more minutes. What no one, not even my mother, really understood at the time was that Bob probably wouldn’t be there waiting anyway.

      Some twenty years later, some things have certainly changed, and some have remained pretty much the same. My aunt no longer has Uncle Bob to go home to. He met a high school sweetheart at a class reunion during my sophomore year in high school and promptly moved 1,500 miles away, catching everyone, except maybe my aunt, by complete surprise. Did the cleaning bug cause him to look outside the no-dirt zone or did his wandering eye give birth to the little bugger that gripped my aunt all these years? Maybe she saw her home coming apart and did everything she could to put things in order—literally. I guess we all deal with disorder in our own way.

      One would think that with a new, visible husband, a happy marriage, and a little rust now on her bones that my aunt and her bug would have mellowed. Not exactly. My wife is in her glory when Aunt Helen visits. She purposefully neglects to clean our Lazy Susan because she knows that is what my aunt has been thinking about from the moment she was invited over, considering the effort she put into it during her last visit. That and whether or not we finally purchased a can of furniture polish since Windex is for windows!

      Her next visit will be particularly pleasing, though. It will be my son’s three-year birthday party, and with him leaving debris and bits of wreckage in his wake, now could not be a better time for a visit from Aunt Helen and her little friend. I’ll stand a safe distance away behind my camcorder as I film my son tearing open gifts like Jaws on spring break in Cancun. Occasionally, the blur of a hand will dart into the frame and deftly catch bits of wrapping paper before they even hit the floor. Off-frame, they will be neatly folded and placed in a white plastic trash bag. The cleaning bug is alive and well.

      ~John MacDonald

      Imaginary Friends

      Imagination and fiction make up more than three-quarters of our real life.

      ~Simone Weil

      At four feet, nine inches and barely ninety pounds, Grandmother was a powerhouse of energy. Wearing white bobby socks and canvas tennis shoes, she rambled through her two-story brick home, sanitizing each room and washing her hands every hour over the kitchen sink.

      As Grandmother scrubbed her palms raw with lye soup and a dishrag, she whispered, What did y’all say? Hee, hee. You comin’? We need you here.

      Curious about her company, I raced into the kitchen to investigate. Upon hearing my footsteps, she abruptly ceased her muffled chatter as if I had interrupted an appointment with a good friend. Turning toward me while continuing to scour her hands, she’d say, Dwan, what can I get for you? Why don’t you go out and play?

      On my way out the door, I would hear her resume the conversation. What did y’all say? Hee, hee. I’m washing, washing. No, I didn’t hear from her. Where is she? Grandmother seemed to be having so much fun. I always wondered what her invisible friends were saying, but I didn’t dare ask. I was told at an early age that it wasn’t polite to speak of her companions.

      I liked visiting Grandmother but noticed, when not in the company of her make-believe friends, she seemed melancholy and distant. She seldom left the house and often told me of plots against her. She’d say, The lady next door is making moonshine and wants me to leave town so I won’t tell the police or Brother Brown has been sending people to watch me because I saw him steal money buried in the cemetery. I struggled to separate reality from counterfeit in her world.

      After long visits with Grandmother, I breathed a sigh of relief to be free of fantasy. This reprieve ended the day my sister introduced me to Tyler. Like many young children, six-year-old Bonnie had conceived an imaginary friend. Unlike our grandmother’s private companions, who only dwelled within the confines of her walls, Tyler went with us everywhere.

      When we sat down to eat at McDonald’s, Bonnie announced, He’s eating my hamburger. When we drove through town, Tyler, look at the big buildings. When it was time to go to bed, Brush your teeth, boy.

      One day while visiting Grandmother, I said, Bonnie is crazy, Grandmother. She has an imaginary friend. She talks to him all the time, and it is driving me nuts. I’m embarrassed to have my friends over because they may see her talking to him.

      Grandmother clenched her raw fists and looked up at me. (I was already taller than her at age eleven.) Now, just you listen. You better not say that to her. Don’t you know that imaginary friends are a sign of creativity? Very intelligent people have imaginary companions, and Bonnie is a very smart girl. She reminds me of me. So you hush.

      I pondered what my grandmother said. Creativity? Intelligence? I had never associated them with incessant chatter to invisible people.

      Thirty years later, as I replay this conversation in my mind, I realize that fantasy serves distinct purposes for different people.

      For my grandmother, her invisible friends were her escape. They were pleasure, solace, and an expression of the joys and pain of her existence. They held her within the walls of mental illness, yet permitted her to maintain contact with her true identity as a wife, mother and grandmother. Her companions soothed her compulsions and gave her courage to face contrived conspiracies.

      For Bonnie, Tyler was truly an expression of her creativity and intelligence. He was a temporary stage in the adventures of childhood. He entertained, while enabling her to expand her communication and social skills. He comforted my sister at a time when the world seemed too large for little girls.

      Tyler eventually faded from Bonnie’s imagination. My grand-mother’s companions remained until her death. In many ways, I wish life could have been different for Grandmother, but I’m thankful for the simple pleasures she received from her imaginary friends. In some odd way, I believe God allowed them to comfort her soul and lighten the burden of her mental disorders.

      ~Dwan Reed

      Just Because

      If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.

      ~Johann von Goethe

      I grew up in a world where crazy was served up daily as a plateful of dysfunction. Years later, at the age of thirty-four, I had a name for my illness. I was bipolar.

      During my chaotic life, I managed to give birth to a ten-pound, ten-ounce bundle of love, Shayla Rae Dawn. To me, she was sheer perfection. Many times throughout the years of raising my daughter, the walls I had built up from a lifetime of abuse dissolved when I held her in my arms. Like a waterfall that had been turned off, my bipolar was evaporated by the love of my child.

      As a little girl, Shayla depended on me for both love and security. Although these were things I had never received, I was able to create them in the deep bond I shared with my daughter.

      Looking back, my daughter never thought something was wrong with Mommy, because my erratic behavior was simply normal to her. We would play together like two schoolmates, skipping along the sidewalk, singing and laughing. If she climbed a tree, I was right behind her, imagining the spectacular tree house we could build in its towering limbs. Shayla would awake in the middle of the night to the wondrous aromas of freshly baked cinnamon

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