Pre-Order So God Made a Mother
“You gotta get out!” my tenant’s friend said over the phone. “The whole mountain’s on fire!”
Gene wandered outside, smelled smoke but saw no evidence of flames. He meandered inside, decided to put his shoes on, and then slipped out again to take another look. “Holy crap!”
He searched frantically for LittleBoy, his favorite ferrel cat. LittleBoy was lost.
Gene jumped in his car and raced down the long winding driveway. Across the way, the neighbor’s house was already engulfed in flames; the street was a hallway on fire.
“I drove through a hailstorm of embers,” Gene told me later. At a parking lot at the end of the road, he pulled over with a huddle of people standing in shock.
“Dude, your car’s on fire!” one of them yelled. Someone grabbed a fire extinguisher.
In the midst of the chaos, a stranger pointed at Gene’s shoes. “Your socks don’t match.” Just then another guy ran to the group, barefoot and shirtless. He couldn’t make it to his car and escaped on foot.
Now that the fire is over, people, mostly like Gene, wander into the laundromat I own with my husband. The lucky ones are washing clothes, blankets, curtains, and linens that all smell like smoke. The ones who aren’t so lucky need information, a hot cup of coffee and everything else.
Pat Hoffman and his wife, Barbie, decided to make our laundromat a soft place for these people to land.
Back when I was diagnosed with cancer 3 years ago, my husband reached out to Pat for help. “I can’t manage this business anymore and take care of Nancy too,” Gary said. For twenty years, our businesses have shared a wall. Pat owns Sonoma Taekwandoo, and we’ve watched each other and our community of customers grow up.
Like all small business owners I know, he’s busy. We hated to ask for help, but we were panicking, wondering how in the hell we would make ends meet as self employed people in a nation that hasn’t figured out that part of the health care system.
In a couple of days, with the ease of seasoned dealmakers and trusted friends, we agreed to a plan that works for everyone. Pat stepped in and still runs our laundromat as if it were his own.
When the fires torched our beloved mountains and vineyards, all of us could see that our community was suffering. People like Gene, like my sister Jane and her husband Dave, like so many of our friends and neighbors – had no place to go.
Information was spotty and often inaccurate. People needed a place to connect.
Pat and his wife, Barbie, moved a row of video games out of the laundromat and into their own storage space, and they put up a bulletin board where neighbors and organizations could post vital information. Then they bought donuts, lots of donuts, but they made coffee too and bought cases of water.
“We’ll wash their blankets, give them coffee, and do whatever we can to help,” Barbie said. La Luz de Sonoma, a local organization, delivered lunches to the laundromat so people could eat.
“This is what it means to be part of a community,” Pat says.
Without completing a single form, without assessing liabilities or conducting a cost benefit analysis study, help showed up. It fed the hungry, it clothed the naked, it comforted the afflicted. There was no army of government employees or trailers full of computers and copy machines. It was just Pat, a laundromat and donuts.
No one got a tax increase. No one had to show ID or proof of income. But people came together anyway and offered help. Those who needed it were grateful; those who served were blessed.
That’s the power of small business. Small entities doing great things. And it happens everyday in communities all across the nation. It’s just that most of the time, nobody notices.
It’s so utterly destructive. It’ll knock the wind—no the very oxygen—out of your sails. It’s nauseating. Conflicting. Terrifying. And so very, very confusing. I did not know what to do with the information. The way I received this information made it more painful and confusing. I was angry. My mom and I have never had a good relationship. She had her demons to fight, but by the time I was born, she must’ve been done fighting them. She showed one picture to the outside world, a perfect and happy family. But behind closed doors, it was just like the negatives...
As I write this, my mother-in-law is in the ICU. We don’t expect her to leave. She’s too young. Sixty-four. We got the call on Saturday. “Get here this week,” they said. So we did. With a newborn, a 3-year-old, a 5-year-old, and a soon-to-be 16-year-old. We managed ICU visits with my in-laws and juggled childcare so we could all take turns seeing the matriarch. For the last time? Maybe. The logistics are all-consuming and don’t leave a lot of space for anything else. Also, I hate logistics. My son asks questions nobody knows how to answer: Will I die...
Oh, the inevitable, as we age into our mid to late 30s and beyond. The natural series of life states that losing a parent will become more commonplace as we, ourselves, continue to age, and I am beginning to see it among my circle of friends. More and more parents passing, and oh, my heart. My whole heart aches and fills with pain for my friends, having experienced this myself three years ago. It’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt more than you could expect. The leader of your pack, the glue, the one you turn to when you...
“Thao is with Jesus now,” we told her, barely choking out the whisper. Jesus. This invisible being we sing about. Jesus. The baby in the manger? Jesus. How can we explain Jesus and death and loss and grief to a 3-year-old? And now, how can we not? We live it, breathe it, and dwell in loss since the death of her brother, our son, Thao. Here we are living a life we never wanted or dreamed of. Here we are navigating loss and death in a way our Creator never intended. What words can I use to describe death to...
Don’t delete the picture—the one you look bad in. I said it. You heard me. Don’t delete the picture, that picture—you know the one, the one with the double chin or the bad angle. The picture that is not so flattering. The picture that accentuates your forehead lines or the one taken next to your skinny best friend. We are all so hard on ourselves. Many of us are striving for a better complexion or a thinner physique. Sometimes scrutinizing ourselves and zooming in on a picture—seeing things the world does not see. Don’t delete the picture. RELATED: Take the...
I am sadly no stranger to pregnancy loss. Out of seven pregnancies, I have been blessed with one beautiful boy on earth, one miracle currently growing inside of me, and five precious angels in Heaven. As a result, I have plenty of experience in dealing with the aftermath of miscarriage. During this period of intense grief and loss, I have had many well-meaning people tell me things they believed would make me feel better, but in reality, caused me pain. Additionally, I have had close friends pull away during this period of time, and later tell me it was because...
The international church service was vibrant with voices lifted up in songs of praise. Many clapped their hands and some even danced before God. But I wanted to be invisible. Joy felt like a land depicted in a fairy tale. I had returned from the hospital the day before—a surgery to remove the baby who had died in my womb. Watching this church buzz with happiness unearthed my fragileness. I slouched in my chair and closed my eyes. Tears trickled down my freckled face. My mind knew God was in control, but my heart ached as yet another thing I...
Rays of soft sunlight streamed through the curtain onto the hospital bed. I stepped to the edge of the bed, taking a moment to soak in his face before gently holding his hand. Eighty-nine years is a rich, full life, and each passing day revealed more convincingly it was time for him to go. Grief and relief shared the space in my heart as I carried the weight of understanding each visit held the opportunity to be my last. When he felt my hand, his eyes opened, and he gifted me a smile. Pop Pop always had a smile for...
I have sat here a million times over my life—on good days, on bad days, with friends, with family. I have celebrated my highest points and cried here at my lowest. I am drawn here, pulled in a way. When I have not been here in some time, the sea calls my soul home. My soul is at peace here. It has always been. Maybe it is the tranquility of the waves, or the sun shining on my face. Maybe it is the solitude I find here. I love her (the sea) in all seasons, when she is calm, when...
My first baby died. After a perfect full-term pregnancy, she was stillborn. That was 10 years ago. Ten years I’ve spent wondering who she would have been. Ten years I’ve spent missing someone I hoped to know but never got the chance to. In those ten years, I’ve learned so much about grief, love, and life. Grief is love. When they laid my stillborn daughter’s cold and lifeless body in my arms, my world was broken into before this nightmare began and after, where I was forever cursed to live with it. I thought I would never be the same...