Two weeks later, I described the person who had assaulted me to a police artist, and my uncle recognized the resulting portrait as the man who attacked me. My assailant was brought in, along with other suspects. However, the trauma and stress took its toll, and I couldn't identify him. Unfortunately, the police could not obtain any physical evidence to link him to the crime, so he was never charged.
The assault left me blind in my left eye, but otherwise uninjured, and with the love and support of my family and friends, I went back to school and resumed my life.
For the next three years, I lived with tremendous anxiety. Most nights I woke up frightened, imagining I heard someone coming in the back door, and I'd wind up sleeping at the foot of my parents' bed.
Then, when I was thirteen, all that changed. One night, during a Bible study with my church youth group, I realized that God's providence and love, having miraculously kept me alive, were the basis for my life's security. In his hands, I could live without fear or anger. And so I did. I finished school, earning a bachelor's degree and a master's in divinity. I married my wonderful wife, Leslie. We have two beautiful toddlers, Amanda and Melodee.
In September of 1996, Major Charles Scherer of the Coral Gables Police Department, who had worked on the original investigation of my case, called to tell me that the seventy-seven-year-old assailant had finally confessed. Blind from glaucoma, in poor health, without family or friends, he was in a North Miami Beach nursing home. I visited him there.
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The first time I went to see him, he apologized for what he had done to me, and I told him that I had forgiven him. I visited him many times after that, introducing him to my wife and girls, offering him hope and some semblance of family in the days before his death. He was always glad when I came by. I believe that our friendship eased his loneliness and was a great relief to him after twenty-two years of regrets.
I know the world might view me as the victim of a horrible tragedy, but I consider myself the "victim" of many miracles. The fact that I'm alive and have no mental deficiencies defies the odds. I've got a loving wife and a beautiful family. I've been given as much promise as anybody elseand ample opportunities. I've been blessed in a lot of ways.
And while many people can't understand how I could forgive him, from my point of view I couldn't not forgive him. If I'd chosen to hate him all these years, or spent my life looking for revenge, then I wouldn't be the man I am todaythe man my wife and children love.
Chris Carrier
Submitted by Katy McNamara
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Happy Birthday
In the game of life, heredity deals the hand, and society makes the rules; but you can still play your own cards.
Peter's Almanac
I've really been good the past four days: low-fat cottage cheese, tuna salad with lemon, broiled chicken with broccoli (no butter), grapefruit for breakfast. . . . Oh boy, I can hardly wait to step on the scale today. Slide out of bed slowly, stretch, savor the anticipated report from the scale. Slip off my robe, step lightly on the scale, look down with fragile confidence. I wonder how many pounds I've lost. Two, three, four maybe? Relishing the anticipated news, I let my eyes slip down to the mechanical device beneath my feet. . . . Disbelief! Confidence destroyed! Not only did I not lose four pounds, I gained one! I've been tricked, fooled, betrayed. The scale says I've been bad; the scale says I'm fat. Four minutes ago I didn't think so, but now I do. I'm fat. I'm bad. Devastated by the condemnation from the scale, I skulk back to bed wearing my robe like a shroud.
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I am accustomed to stepping on the scale in the morning and to having the weight report determine what kind of a mood I will be in for that day. But today I am thirty-four, and I've been dieting in preparation for my birthday. I wanted to feel good today, not old and . . . But the scale has passed judgment on me: I'm fat. I'm bad. Sullenly I trudge back to bed where I feel, not think, the memories.
I remember.
I am four. My cousins romp circles around me, their loud obnoxious shrieks assaulting my ears. I suppose my quiet granddaddy loves them, too (though I don't know why), but I also know he loves me best. I don't know how I know this, but I do. Though he can hear themthey all scream so loudand he can hardly hear me at all. My family doesn't talk loudly. We talk quietly in my house, and I talk quietest of all. But Grandpa and I don't talk much; we don't need to. Grandpa, I want to pick pink rhubarb I think, looking up at him. "Shall we go pick some rhubarb, Wee Ann?" he says quietly, taking my small, pudgy hand in his coarse, big one. Grandpa calls me his special version of my given name, Willanneunlike my cousins, who call me "Pudgy." I am pudgy, as pictures thirty years later attest. But today I am four and I don't care if I'm "Pudgy," because Grandpa loves me best. I don't know how I know this, I just know, that's all.
I remember.
I am eleven. We are visiting Grandma's house and my detestable cousins have a friend over. My cousins are running around under the umbrella tree in the front yard and shrieking brainlessly. But their frienda boyis not running and shrieking. My cousins are gleefully teasing him, daring him to kiss me. I hate my cousins. My horrible cousins still call me "Pudgy," though I've outgrown the appropriateness of the name. I'm so embarrassed.
I remember.
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I am sixteen. I pass the driving test easily, both the written and the driving portion. But the hard question comes after "Sex," "Color of eyes" and "Height." The question is: ''Weight." How much should I say, I wonder. What happens if I lie? Will I have to step on a scale? If I lie will an alarm go off? Will the clerk repeat my weight out loud so everyone will know? Will she question me? Will she exclaim disbelievingly, "You weigh how much?" Filled with trepidation, I decide to lie. I wonder how much I can get away with. I take off ten pounds. I get away with it. No alarm sounds. The clerk doesn't even raise an eyebrow. She acts like she doesn't even care, though I'm sure she must.
I get away with my first ten-pound lie: Ten pounds becomes my permanent cheat number. No matter how much I weigh, from then on, I always take off ten pounds before committing my weight to paper. And I always knowno matter how much I weighthat if I just lose ten pounds, I'll be just right. No matter how much Iweigh, "just right" is always ten pounds less.
In the suburban morning quiet, I remember.
Six years ago, I was pregnant and looking like the Goodyear blimp. But today I am thirty-four, and I'm not pregnant. I'm also not fat. I'm not even pudgy. But the scale has just pronounced judgment and destroyed my mood by telling me I gained a pound.
I contemplate this: Maybe how much I weigh is not the problem; perhaps the problem is how I feel about how much I weigh.
Unhurried, I rise from the bed to which the bathroom scale has so recently sent me. I put on my robe, and go to the bathroom. I pick up the scale and carry it deliberately down the hall past the dining room, through the kitchen, to the side yard where six empty trash cans await next week's trash. I raise the scale to the level of my shoulders, pause for just a moment and then drop the mechanical
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dictator into the waiting rubbish receptacle. And in so doing, I reclaim control over my own morale.
Never again will my mood be determined by the bathroom scale. A happy birthday belongs to me.
Willanne Ackerman
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Manners
The tired ex-teacher edged closer to the counter at Kmart. Her left leg hurt and she hoped she had taken all of her pills for the day: the ones for her high blood pressure, dizziness and a host of other ills. Thank goodness I retired years ago, she thought to herself. I don't have the energy to teach these days.
Just before the line to the counter formed, she spotted a young man with four children and a pregnant wife or girlfriend in tow. The teacher couldn't miss the tattoo on his neck. He's been to prison, she thought. She continued checking him out. His white T-shirt, shaved hair and baggy pants led her to surmise, He's a gang member.
/> The teacher tried to let the man go ahead of her.
"You can go first," she offered.
"No, you go first," he insisted.
"No, you have more people with you," said the teacher.
"We should respect our elders," parried the man. And with that, he gestured with a sweeping motion indicating the way for the woman.
A brief smile flickered on her lips as she hobbled in front of him. The teacher in her decided she couldn't let
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the moment go and she turned back to him and asked "Who taught you your good manners?"
"You did Mrs. Simpson, in third grade."
Paul Karrer
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Born to Live, Born to Love
Thirty years ago my friend Kelly's sister, Christine, was born into the world with several strikes against her. Her parents had split up just before she was born. Her room had several complications with her pregnancy and Christine ended up arriving a couple of weeks early. Because she was premature, she ended up with respiratory problems that necessitated spending two weeks in the intensive-care nursery. With no insurance, her mom had to go back to work right away, and Kelly and I became Christine's chief baby-sitters. Then Christine was diagnosed with the condition known as dwarfism.
It was obvious from the time she could roll over and smile that this was one happy child. She was bright, articulate and stubborn and determined to succeed despite any of her physical limitations. Christine had no doubt that her life would turn out exactly the way she wanted it. At least that's what she would tell you if you could get her to stand still long enough to talk.
As a toddler, Christine demanded to be treated just like everyone else. Nobody could tell her she couldn't do what Kelly and I could. It didn't matter that we were six years older. When Kelly and I rode our bikes, Christine
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insisted on being pulled along in her wagon. If Kelly and I had to do dishes, Christine wanted to be propped on the counter and handed a dishtowel.
By the time Christine was due to start kindergarten, she was more than ready. Kelly and I had already taught her to read when she had been confined to bed following corrective surgery for one of her legs. On the first day of school, Kelly and I stood there open-mouthed as she told her teacher, "I'm just like the other kids. Don't baby me." Christine loved school and did very well. She was a natural leader, and there wasn't a single dissenting vote when she was elected class president in the seventh grade.
Other than the fact that her mom sometimes had to work double shifts to keep up with the bills, Christine had a normal, happy family.
However, during her senior year of high school, Christine's mother died. Christine then moved in with Kelly, who had gotten married two years earlier, and she soon became the favorite baby-sitter to Kelly's twins. After graduation, Christine found a job working in a bakery and moved into an apartment with me. Since I worked odd hours, we really didn't see that much of each other, and it was the first time she was truly on her own. She loved it!
Christine and our neighbor Eric really hit it off and began dating a few weeks after they met. A couple of years later, when Christine and Eric decided to marry, they had to confront the issue that Christine's physical problems would prevent her from ever having children of her own. But Christine knew without a doubt that she wanted to be a mother. Shortly after she and Eric married, they hired an attorney and tried to register with three different adoption agencies. Each agency politely but firmly told them that with her medical history and their limited funds, adoption was probably going to be impossible.
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Obviously, they didn't know Christine very well.
Three weeks after the third agency rejected their application, Christine was watching the evening news and saw a program on unadoptable children. "Unadoptable" meant that these children were either too ill, too old or had too many other problems to be desirable. When the story focused on specific children, Christine heard about Illiana, a beautiful two-year-old who had been born with dwarfism and abandoned by her parents. Immediately, Christine knew she had found her ideal child.
After further investigation, though, Christine discovered that the process would take many months and cost more money than she and Eric had been able to save. Friends and relatives offered donations but it wasn't enough. Then her boss at the bakery came up with an idea: He took out a small ad in the local paper, announcing that, the following week, a percentage of sales at each of his three stores would go to help Eric and Christine adopt Illiana.
The response was unbelievablethe bakeries were mobbed. Then a local radio station ran the story and found a sponsor to match all the funds collected. At the end of the week, Eric and Christine had enough to complete the adoption process, buy clothes and toys, and even set aside a bit for their new daughter's education.
Today, Illiana is a healthy, happy seven-year-old. She is Christine's best helper and has pushed Kelly and me aside when it comes to caring for her little brother who was adopted last year.
Like mother, like daughter.
Eileen Goltz
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Table Manners
Stressed is just desserts spelled backwards.
Brian Luke Seaward
The Pot-Bellied Potlucks began, unofficially, my first Christmas alone. I'd just left a marriage of twenty-two years, and I knew the days of full-family holidays, with all their rituals and comforts, were over for me. But I was determined not to feel sorry for myself, so I called up four friends and invited them to a potluck suppernothing fancy, just a simple sharing of food and less work for everyone.
The evening was delightful, with the five of us so enchanted with its success that we decided to make the one-night gathering a monthly ritual.
Soon we had a steady roll call of nine or ten women, as new friends were introduced to the group. Some were single moms like myself, others married, some never married. All seemed to cook so well! Years of feeding families, entertaining and experimenting had resulted in well-honed recipes.
Yet outstanding meals were only part of the draw.
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Friendships evolved from our potlucks, as we formed a tightly bound community. We talked about everything: work, relationships, children, pet peeves, new causes and the latest jokes. Laughter was the one constant at the table, the staple of our meals. Together we learned to melt our frustrations with a sense of humor.
Our potlucks then got an official name. One evening, a group member reported that her daughter had taken a phone message about the group's dinner plans: "Mom, someone named Marga called from your pot-bellied group. Call her back."
We howled at the aptness of her Freudian slip, and the name stuck.
The pot-bellied group had been meeting monthly for four years when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. This was not in my plans. I was facing a whole new kind of struggle. But again I was determined not to face it alone and not to become paralyzed by my fear.
Two weeks before the scheduled lumpectomy, I called Susie, a member of the group, and requested a potluck.
"I need one before surgery. Can you organize something upbeat?" I asked.
Two nights before surgery, I set the table and opened the door for the first guest, Anne. She brought the hors d' oeuvres, aka "malignant tumors." They were gorgeous little stuffed mushrooms, looking ever so innocent. Next to arrive was R.N. Rickie, dressed in green scrubs and a stethoscope, and bearing plasma in the form of red wine. With each dish, the menu dramatically spelled out my destiny.
Chicken Soup Unsinkable Soul Page 25
