Kristen Anne Glover

Five in Tow

The Extra Mile

“Mom is taking us out!” “She must be crazy.” Micah and Paul, 8 mos.

I felt particularly proud of myself that morning.   The diapers were fresh, the underwear clean, and the faces free of jam, honey, or marker as we headed out the door on time.   My twins were even wearing matching outfits more than an hour after I had dressed them.   Usually one of them had thrown up all over himself by now.  But not today!  Today, I felt like Supermom.

The sky was brilliant as I lugged the two car carriers down the front steps and into the blinding sun.   I felt like I’d come out of hibernation.  I’d spent so many months on the couch on bed rest and then caring for my two newborns, a team of CSI agents could create a full-sized likeness of me based on the imprint of my body on the cushions.

But today, we were going out.  The kids piled in the car, giddy with excitement.  I loaded up the twins and then headed for the garage to grab  Lurch, my beastly double stroller, aptly named after our first trip to the grocery store in which his rubber wheels went all askew and I ended up lugging fifty pounds of baby-laden stroller backward down the aisles.  I had not yet forgiven him.  Begrudgingly, I heaved his ridged frame toward the door.  Even when completely folded, Lurch was too big for the back of the minivan.  He sat up front with me, glaring at the road from the passenger side and thinking up ways to be impossible on my perfect day.

But once we were all on the road, it didn’t matter.   Everyone was happy.   We took the long way down a winding road with scenic views and the potential of a buffalo siting.  It’s always a great day when you see a buffalo.  I led the troops in a rousing rendition of The Wheels on the Bus while we scanned the field for its massive brown shoulders.  “The wipers on the bus go swish, swish, swish,” I sang, waving my arm back and forth in time to the music.  “What else does the bus do?”

“The lights on the bus go red and blue!” shouted Jonathan.

“Red and blue?  No, the bus has orange lights,” I said, wondering when that child was going to learn his colors.  Maybe he was colorblind?  I should look into that.

Faith interrupted my thoughts.  “No, Mommy, it’s a POLICE!”

I looked in the rearview mirror.  Sure enough, the red and blue lights of a squad car flashed ominously.  How long has he been following me?  I wondered if he had witnessed the arm flailing that had been coming from the driver’s seat.

“Did you break the law?” Jonathan asked fearfully.

“No, Honey.  I mean, I don’t think so.  Maybe I was speeding a little.”

A collective gasp rose from the backseat.  “You did break the law!  You’re going to be arrested!”

“No, guys.  They don’t arrest people for speeding.”

“They shoot them,” Faith whispered to Jonathan.  I cringed, suddenly aware of a major oversight in my children’s home education.

The narrow country road didn’t have a shoulder, so I slowed down until I came to the first driveway.   A metal fence decorated with razor wire and a handwritten “No Trespassing” sign were all that kept three big dogs from jumping onto my car.  Trespassing was the last thing on my mind.

The officer waltzed over to my side of the car and the kids immediately slunk down in their seats.  I rolled down the window and tried to smile.  He did not smile back.  He was probably allergic to dogs, I reasoned.

“Do you know why I pulled you over, Ma’am?” he asked.

I hated open-ended questions.  Once, a police officer pulled me over because the passenger seat belt strap was caught in the door.  I was ready to admit to just about anything, including driving with my hands on 5 and 7 instead of 10 and 2 before he told me why he’d stopped me.

“Do you know how fast you were driving?” he rephrased the question.

“Not really,” I confessed.  “I wasn’t really watching.”

My honesty took him by surprise.

“Are you familiar with this road?” he asked.

“It’s the road to Nana’s!” one of the kids offered.   Clearly, I didn’t have any excuses.  “We come this way all the time,” I admitted.

“Then you should know it’s a 35 mile-per-hour zone. “ He paused.  I nodded guiltily.  “You were driving 43.”

“We were singing,” I said by way of explanation.  I decided to withhold the part about the hand motions.

“I’m going to need to see your vehicle registration and proof of insurance, Ma’am.”

I dug around for my license, but then stopped.  The rest of the paperwork was in the glove box, and that was going to be a problem.  “I’m not sure I can open it,” I said apologetically, trying to reach around Lurch, who was propped up against the window like a dead body.

“What is that?” the officer asked, looking suspicious.  He poked his head through my window.

“It’s a double stroller,” I explained.

“His name is Lurch!” Jonathan piped up from the back.

“Mom calls him the ‘s’ word!” added Faith.

The officer’s eyes opened wide.

“That would be ‘stupid,’” I said, my face burning.  “The ‘s word’ is ‘stupid.’”

One corner of his mouth went up in a smile.  He peered in behind me.

“How many kids you got back there?”

“Five.”

“They’re all yours?”

“Yes.”

“All boys?”

“No, actually, the one in the pink is a girl, then it goes boy, girl, boy, boy.”

“Are those twins?”

“Yes.”

“How old are they?  Is that one the oldest?  How old is she?”

A car cruised past us cautiously.  The kids started rattling off their ages.  At this point in the conversation, I was no longer necessary.   I took the opportunity to daydream about Hawaii.

“When we found out we were having twins, I was so excited!” Jonathan was saying, leaning forward in his car seat so the officer could see him.  “I went around to everyone in Costco and said, ‘I’m having BROTHERS!’”

The officer looked at me.  “Jeeze,” he said with a low whistle, setting his hat back a little further on his head.   “No wonder you were speeding!”

With that, he returned his pen to his shirt pocket and walked back to his car without saying another word.

“He didn’t say good-bye!” Faith moaned.

The next week, we were back on the same road again.  This time, we were not on time.  The twins were wearing their third outfit of the morning and I had no idea what the clean underwear count was on this particular day.  We had left the house with the breakfast plates still on the table and a path of jammies on the floor.   I hadn’t seen my Supermom tights in days.

“Mom, are you driving the speed limit?” Faith asked.  They had developed a sudden interest in my driving habits since I was pulled over.

“Yes, I am!” I said glancing down at the speedometer.  37 was close enough.

“Then why is that police following us again?”

Sure enough, flashing lights filled my rearview.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”  I pulled over in the same driveway.  “Still not trespassing!”  I yelled out the window at the dogs already gathering by the gate.

The same officer got out of his car and approached my window.

“I see you’ve figured out how to drive the speed limit,” he said.

“I’m a quick learner,” I said wryly, wondering why he’d pulled me over this time.  Didn’t he know we were late?

He laughed.  “Well, I saw your car and I had to pull you over ‘cause I was talking to the wife about you and she knows this lady who had twins and she’s got a double stroller that’s about half the size of that one there,” he glanced warily toward Lurch.  “It’s just taking up space in the garage so she said she’d sell it to you cheap.  You said you came this way often so I took a chance.”  He fished around in his pocket until he found a piece of paper.  “I wrote her number down for you.”

“You almost gave me a heart attack!” I said, taking the slip.

“I figure any woman with five kids and a stroller named Lurch can handle a little harassment from the police,” he said with a wink.  “Watch that lead foot,” he called as he headed back to the car.  Then he turned around and came back and leaned in the window a little.  “You’re doing a great job, by the way.  My wife and I have four boys, and I remember that some days, it would have been good to hear that we were doing something right.”

I blinked quickly.

“Good job with those kids,” the officer said.  “I can tell they’ve got a good mom.   Now ya’ll get out of here before I have to arrest you for trespassing.”  He patted my arm and headed back to the squad car.

The kids waved at him as we pulled away from the salivating guard dogs.  “He wouldn’t really arrest us,” Faith said.  “We’re just kids.”

Jonathan nodded and smiled happily.  “Besides, he likes us.”

I spent the rest of the drive deep in thought as the kids chatted about the police man.  I wondered if I would have done the same thing, if I would have waited by the side of the road on the off-chance that a busy mom with a Herculean double stroller might drive by so I could help her out.  I wondered if I would really go that far out of my way to say a kind word to someone who needed it.  I hoped I would, but I knew the reality.  The reality was that I was often too busy, too self-focused, and too indifferent to go the extra mile.

“That man was really nice,” I heard Jonathan say.  I looked in the rearview at their jelly-smudged, smiling faces.  I might not be Supermom, I thought, but I am blessed.   A perfect stranger had taken the time to go the extra mile for me, and that made all the difference.

Junk Eddie

Grandpa with Jonathan, May 2007

 

For as long as I can remember, people have called him Junk Eddie.  He lives in a junk yard a few miles down the road from my grandparent’s farm.  Although I’ve never seen it myself, I’ve been told he sleeps in an old abandoned house trailer that seems to drift about in the sea of used tires, household appliances, and rusty farm equipment that covers his property.  Since his house burned to the ground several years back, he’s made the trailer his home, though it has no running water or indoor plumbing.

Ed is a quiet, elderly man who likes to keep to himself.  He doesn’t talk to many people and very few people talk to him.  He isn’t a drunk.  He isn’t homeless.  He doesn’t abuse women or hunt down children.  He gives his money to the local Catholic church and slicks back his hair once a week to go to bingo.

But people treat him like a criminal.   They turn away when they see him, walk on the other side of the street when he’s coming toward them, and laugh about him when he’s close enough to hear.

For his part, Ed doesn’t do much to raise people’s opinions of him.  He takes particular pride in the fact that he has never in his life paid more than a quarter for a piece of clothing.  To demonstrate the fact, he walks around town dressed in filthy, ill-fitting clothes, a pair of worn out shoes, and an old hat that makes a half-hearted attempt to cover his stringy gray hair.  More than once, I’ve seen him rummaging through a curbside trash heap, looking for discarded clothing and putting on anything that fits.  Sometimes it’s an improvement.  Most of the time, it isn’t.

Some days I see Ed behind the grocery store, pulling soggy lettuce heads from the garbage bin.  He waits by the back door for the manager to dump out all the rotten or expired food.  He tries to be there early so he can salvage the meat and dairy products while they’re still cold.  If anyone asks, Ed says the food is for his dog, but no one believes him.

The truth is, most people are a little afraid of Ed.  People like him could be dangerous, unpredictable.   They lock their doors when he comes down the street and pull down the shades.   They avoid him because they don’t understand him.

But not my grandpa.  Grandpa has been a friend of Ed’s for years.  I don’t know how my grandpa, a former missionary and an elder on the church board, got to be friends with this eccentric outcast, but I have a feeling it has a lot to do with Grandpa’s relationship with the Lord.

I never knew my grandpa when he wasn’t a Christian, although he tells stories of his wild days before he came to his senses.  He used to be an alcoholic, although it’s hard to imagine him that way now.  As long as I’ve known him, he has had a passion for God.  Every morning, he gets up before daylight to read his Bible and pray.  He sits in his favorite chair by the window and begins his day with God.  He commits the things he reads to his heart and applies them to his life.

Maybe that’s why Grandpa started reaching out to Ed.  He read that those who follow Christ should walk as Jesus walked, and he believed it.  He read that Jesus walked among the sinners and the outcasts and the untouchables of his day, and Grandpa decided that if he was to be like Jesus, he’d have to do the same.  So he started walking with Ed.

Every week, Grandpa makes a trip down the road to visit Ed.  Very few people ever stop in to see Ed.  They can’t get past the smell of rotting food and the trash that seems to cover every inch of his property.  Sometimes he gets a visit from a high school kid looking for some odd car part, or a from a city council member looking for some way to throw Ed in jail for health code violations, but that’s about it.  I imagine Ed must get awfully lonely at times, which is probably why he enjoys Grandpa’s visits.  Grandpa is probably the only true friend Ed has ever had.

And Grandpa considers it a privilege to be a part of Ed’s life.  When he comes home from an afternoon at the junkyard, his face is glowing.  Usually, he walks in the house with an armful of food Ed salvaged from that day’s trip to the grocery store.  Sometimes he brings home a piece of scrap metal or a machine part he can use in his shop.

He comes home with stories too, stories about how God is working in Ed’s life and how Grandpa has had a chance to love him like Jesus would, not always with words, but with deeds.  Inevitably, when Grandpa talks about Ed, he begins to cry.  Tears well up in his eyes and run down his weathered face.  “I hope he knows how much I appreciate him,” Grandpa will say.  “I hope he knows.”

It is in those moments that I begin to see clearly what it means to walk as Jesus walked.  I understand what it means to love without condition, and what it means to be a light to the world.  I begin to realize that if Christians hope to impact the world for Christ, they must first live Christ out in their daily lives.  When my grandpa, in his worn leather vest and straw hat, leans on his old blue Dodge and talks to Ed while the work piles up in the shop, he looks a lot to me like Jesus.  Not the pristine, stained-glass Jesus reserved for Sunday school and Easter cards, but the friend-of-sinners Jesus, the Jesus who mixed mud with His hands, who smelled of dust and the bottoms of fishing boats, the Jesus who kept company with corpses and allowed sticky children and scandalous women to touch Him.  He looks a lot like the Jesus who loved with His life and not just with His words.

Some people might want to pat my grandpa on the back and tell him what a noble thing it is he is doing by befriending Junk Eddie.  Still, not many of us would go in his place.  But Jesus would.

 

*This story was originally published in Moody magazine, which is no longer in print.   I entered it in a writing contest sponsored by best-selling author Jerry B. Jenkins.  Since I had written it the night before and printed it just minutes before the deadline, I was shocked when I won.   But I was thrilled that this story could be told because it captures the heart of a man who has deeply impacted my life.  My grandfather lost his battle with cancer last year.  His was a life well-lived, and this is how I will remember him.

The Pasta Plates

It all started with the discovery of a set of pasta making attachments for my Kitchenaid mixer.  They were hidden in a box labeled “Kitchen Things—not important.”  In the chaos of a cross-country move, they had been shoved into a storage room and forgotten for ten years.

Then one day, I went down to our storage room on a quick errand and ended up spending two days organizing, sorting, rearranging, and opening boxes I hadn’t seen in years.   I didn’t expect to find much in the “Kitchen Things” box.  After all, the Sharpie said it was unimportant.

But the Sharpie lied.

There, underneath a few extra pieces of flatware and a stack of manuals, was the box of brand-new pasta plates. These were the pasta plates I wished I had owned, the pasta plates I had drooled over whenever I ventured into the kitchen section of my local Fred Meyer.  These were the pasta plates that could transform this lowly domestic housewife into a bustling Italian grandmother who served up copious amounts of fresh pasta to multiple generations of little Glovers as we gathered around our dinner table in the glow of the setting sun.

Now, that dream was within my reach.

I rushed upstairs and showed the kids.  “Can you really make spaghetti?” Faith asked, wide-eyed.

It was 5:30 pm, but how long could it take to learn how to use my new gadget?  I had watched enough Iron Chef to know that making pasta was child’s play.  I fished the instructions out of the box and soon I was on my way to making some mean linguini.

The kids were anxious to help.  I could almost hear a little violin playing in the background as we ground the sprouted wheat and threw in some fresh eggs and a little water.  Soon we had a lovely dough.  At least it looked lovely, but my inner Italian grandmother was taking a while to warm up, so I wasn’t really sure.

“We’re going to make spaghetti!  We’re going to make spaghetti!” the kids chanted.  All five of them crowded around the machine.  “Put the dough in!”  They pleaded.  I stretched over their heads and dropped in the first ball of dough.  We waited.  Soon little strands of pasta began to appear.  The twins clapped.  It was official: Mommy’s mixer was the coolest Play-doh fun factory of all time.

My husband walked by.  “What are you guys doing?” he asked, peering into the side of the bowl.

“We’re making pasta!” I said cheerfully.

He looked confused.  “Can’t you buy pasta?  At the store?  For like, a dollar?”  I sensed I was about to receive the “Isn’t-your-time-worth-anything?” speech.

“Of course you can buy it at the store,” I said, resisting the urge to smack him in front of the children.  “But look!  I can make it myself!”  I thought that said it all.

“Why?” he asked. The question took me aback.  Why?   Because I can, that’s why!   Isn’t that reason enough?  I thought back to my childhood, where dinnertime discussions often led to a search through an encyclopedia or manual and ended with a trip to the barn to look for just the right scrap that might just work to make that thing that somebody wondered if they could make.  The question of whether or not we could do something was always more fascinating than question of whether or not we should.   We had a litany of successes and failures to prove it.

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and tried to come up with an actual, rational reason for making pasta myself.  But before I could, the kids piped up.

“We’re making pasta because it will taste better!” Faith said.

“And it will be better for us!” added Kya.

“Don’t you know that everything Mom makes is better than the store?” Jonathan pointed out the obvious.  I secretly resolved to buy those children a pony.

“We’ll see,” Jeff grinned as the pasta started oozing out of the machine at a frighteningly rapid rate.   For a chaplain, that man has remarkably little faith.

He walked out of the kitchen and left me with my project, which was beginning to take on a life of its own.  The little strands had gotten longer, and longer, and the pasta began to come out faster and faster.  I wasn’t sure what to do.  The instructions cautioned against letting the pasta stick together, so I threw some flour at it whenever it seemed appropriate.

“Mom’s throwing flour!” the kids squealed with delight.

The pasta kept on coming, faster and faster.

“Should I cut it?” I asked my sous chefs.  The instructions hadn’t said anything about cutting the pasta.

“Yes, cut it!” Jonathan shouted.  He was always willing to support any activity that involved knives.

But cutting pasta while it was oozing out of the machine and attempting to keep it from sticking together required more dexterity than I proved to have.  The beautiful linguini clumped together hopelessly.

“Is it supposed to do that?” began the chorus by my side.

“I’ve never seen any pasta that looks like that.”

“It looks like a big pile of worms!”

“Eeeeeeew!”

“Yucky!”

“I’m not eating that!”

“Do you have any macaroni and cheese?  I’m hungry.”

I stared at my pile of pasta.  The kids stared with me.  Many adjectives came to mind, but most of them involved the kinds of words I had banished from our family thesaurus.

“Well,” I said, trying to sound positive, “I guess we let it dry for a bit and then we’ll see.”  But secretly I was thinking, I’ve totally messed this up.  I wasted three cups of flour and an hour of our time and now dinner is going to be hopelessly late and the kids are going to be scarred for life because they will forevermore associate pasta with dried up worms!  What was I thinking?

The magic was over.  The violin players turned back into a Veggie Tales CD, the fresh bread sticks turned back into Cheerios, and my inner Italian was transformed back into an Anglo-Saxon mixed breed who was genetically programed to boil things.  I should have made potatoes.

Instead, I boiled up the pasta and served it piping hot at exactly 7:15.   By then, the children were so hungry, they didn’t mind eating worms.  They chewed through their clumpy strands of pasta with valor, oblivious to the fact that al dente shouldn’t require the use of molars.   Epic failure, I thought to myself.

“I’m sorry the pasta didn’t really turn out,” I said.

“What do you mean?” Jonathan asked between bites.  “It’s the best pasta I’ve ever had!”

“It’s beautiful delicious!” Kya proclaimed, munching happily.
“Mmmm!  Nummy!” Micah said with his mouth full.

Paul just nodded.  The sauce on his face matched his hair.

“And next time we make it, it will be better,” Faith added.  “Not many people get it right the first time,” she said knowingly to Jonathan.

I thought I could hear that violin again.  I looked at my family gathered around my dinner table, and it occurred to me that one day, when I am old and the grandchildren gather around my table and my children tell stories about their mother, they probably won’t remember the time I attempted to make pasta for the first time.  They probably won’t remember how it all clumped together in one massive lump, and how dinner was so late, it almost qualified as breakfast.

But I hope they will remember that their mother was infinitely curious and recklessly determined.  I hope they will remember that their mother was not afraid to try, to investigate, and to learn.  I hope they remember that she threw flour and served worms for dinner.  I hope they will remember that their mother did not always get it right the first time.  But she tried.  And if someone asks them why they make pasta themselves, they won’t have to think up a reason.  I hope they’ll know why.