Armed and Dangerous: True Story

We were down to three rolls of toilet paper in our house, none of them were full rolls, and we have four bathrooms. This is so unlike me. We’ve had some stressful times around here lately, and consequently my trips to Target to stock up on supplies have been so few and far between that someone built an entire Starbucks right inside the store, with baristas and everything, since the last time I was there. I am not making this up. But I digress. Kind of.

I arrived home from Target with two 60-roll packages of toilet paper because as God is my witness I will never be without toilet paper again. Everyone was at work or school, and I was all excited to be home alone for a while. I entered the house through the garage door and unloaded the car. I went upstairs first and put away toilet paper, tissues, laundry supplies, and such like. Next I went into the downstairs bathroom to put some toilet paper in there, and then decided to go ahead and, uh, well, you know, use the facilities.

Just as I was about to walk out of the bathroom, I heard a man’s voice shout out, “HELLOOOOO?” from inside of the house. It wasn’t a voice I recognized, and the hello was in question form as if to ask if anyone was in the house.

My heart started racing while I quickly and quietly formed my plan of action. My thoughts and plan of action went like this: If I hid in the bathroom and was discovered, I’d be trapped. There were two ways out of the hallway outside of the bathroom. I’d jump out as though I was fearless and fearsome and fierce, and look both ways. I’d see the man and then run out of the hallway the opposite way and get out of the house. Just as I was about to make my move, I thought, “What if the man caught up to me, or was already right outside of the door?” I would need a weapon. I thought fast and grabbed the pointiest tweezers in the drawer.


I held the tweezers the way Mrs. White held the knife in Carrie so I’d be able to stab with the most force should it come to that. (I really thought that part out because I really am that badazz.) I opened the door and looked around quickly. I saw nothing. I had planned to see someone lurking, dang it, so I didn’t know which way to go. Thinking fast, I went the way with the most available exits.



No sign of him. Was he hiding?

Then I felt a cold breeze.

At that point I began to panic slightly. (WHAT? Brandishing pointy tweezers was not because of panicking – that was planning.) I got a tad panicky because I had to briefly consider the possibility that I had imagined the man’s voice. This is how I briefly considered the possibility that I had imagined the man’s voice: “OH MY GOD THE PTSD IS SO MUCH WORSE THAN I'D THOUGHT!!! OH MY GOD I’M ACTUALLY INSANE AND HEARING VOICES!!!” But then I got a hold of myself because if I was actually that insane, my husband would not have been able to keep that to himself and surely would have told me so during an argument. WHAT?

I felt a cold breeze again.

I followed the cold breeze to the front door. It was wide open. I had entered the house through the garage. WHO LEFT THE FRONT DOOR WIDE OPEN? Just as I was deciding whether to flee out the front door or run back in and rescue my iPhone boyfriend and iPad goddess from the clutches of a probable serial killer, I saw the UPS truck pull away from the curb. And then I noticed that just inside the front door was a package from Amazon. Oh, good, the book my daughter wanted had arrived. Putting two and two together I realized that the UPS guy put the book inside of the house and yelled, “HELLOOOOO?” because the front door was wide open.

But how had that happened? Well, it was a VERY windy day and the door will blow open if it is left unlocked. I called my husband at work, and after a very brief interrogation period, he admitted to having been outside before he left for work and must have forgotten to lock the door. Obviously my husband learned nothing from watching all six seasons of The Sopranos. He would be sleeping with the fishes right now if he weren’t so darn cute.

This post is a true story. The names weren’t even changed because nobody mentioned is innocent anyway. Please tell me you have a similar story about a time that the UPS guy left you a book, so I’ll know that these things don’t only happen to me.

It Takes a Child to Raise a Village

The first Freedom Riders boarded buses headed for segregated southern states in 1961. These civil rights activists were trained in nonviolent protest and still knowingly risked their lives to violence. They took action to bring an end to the injustice of the Jim Crow laws still in effect in the south at that time.

My eleven-year-old daughter Laura and I talked about a then-twelve-year-old girl named Janie Forsyth who helped save, one at a time, some of the Freedom Riders from a burning bus, while adults perpetrated or stood by watching the violence. The young girl endured serious repercussions (from the Ku Klux Klan and others) within her southern community, all because she was the one who did the right thing. We talked about how sometimes doing a good thing might cause you more trouble at the time than you bargained for, but doing good is always right. Laura and I agreed that sometimes children know how to be heroes better than adults.

We also talked about the story of a former KKK member and the African American man he beat until bloody as he disembarked from a bus during the Freedom Rides. When the police asked the African American man if he wanted to press charges, he said, “No. We’re not here to cause trouble. We’re here for people to love each other.” Almost half a century later (in 2009), the former Klan member who had beaten another man because of the color of his skin, tracked his victim down so that he could apologize. He didn’t find a victim though. The African American Freedom Rider had since become a member of Congress. The old white man said that throughout the years he reflected back upon those words of love time and time again; they never left him. Congressman John Lewis held the hand of the man who had beaten him while they told their story on Oprah.



Congressman Lewis suffered a serious wrong and nearly fifty years without an apology, one he might never have gotten and the only one he got after the many injustices that were done to him throughout his lifetime as a civil rights activist. Yet even left bloody and beaten, in that moment he offered back only love—and that love grew to change a heart that most would have written off as impossibly lost. Not only did Congressman Lewis offer love at the time, he did not allow anger or hatred to fester in his heart in the following years. He continued on giving his life to the service of our country.

Congressman John Lewis taught Laura and me about what it means to be an unsung hero, and that being a true hero has two parts. There is the heroic act itself and then acting with grace and love in the aftermath, even or especially when the aftermath isn't a parade.

Dear Laura,

You spoke up and stood up for someone else when nobody else did. You protected another person who needed it and you shined a light every place where there had been darkness. You did it for reasons and in a manner that your family and those closest to what happened know for sure that your courage and actions touched lives in a positive way.

And then you experienced more trouble than ever should have come your way because of it. At times you felt scrutinized, questioned, and criticized—because you were by some people. You wanted to feel that others were standing by you—but what you got was someone standing on you.

All the while your family and a number of others (you know who they are) were with you, believing in you and applauding you. But even people who believe in God don’t always feel his presence when they need it most. I hope that you have faith that even when you aren’t seeing it or feeling it, love is right there with you, next to you, and inside of you at all times.

I know that you will continue to face and rise up to meet challenges, and in the aftermath act with grace and love. I know that you will figure out how to do that, even when it seems like it would be the hardest thing to pull off. I am proud of you. I love you.

Laura, you are a hero and today I sing for you.

Love, Mom

(Photo credit: Congressman Lewis and Elwin Wilson from Oprah.com.)

To Be Filed Under "You Can't Always Get What You Want . . .

. . . but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need."


I wanted a pair of these for Mother's Day.

My daughters knew that these are the TOMS that I needed. Obv.




I love you! (Yes, I mean you and you and you.)

Happy Mother's Day to you and you and you and you and you and you, etc. (Yes, I mean you, and, no, you aren't the etc.)