Bobbie stiffened and didn't know what to say. I understood. She was very close to her dad. Yet her inability to show compassion threatened to shatter my last shreds of control.
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Chris, our oldest son, seemed not surprised. After all, divorce was the norm in today's life.
But it wasn't the norm for us. We were going to grow old together, Ralph and I. It was part of the game we always played, two old hopeless fools still in love.
Severely bent over and barely able to walk or talk, Ralph would call in a quavering voice, "Schatzi, where are you? Come here, I need a woman!" With my glasses at the tip of my nose I'd cast my eyes downward in a pretense of embarrassment and cackle, "You old devil you." Then with outstretched arms we'd shuffle towards each other in excited anticipation. But almost blind, we'd pass right by and take forever to come together, two old toothless clowns afflicted with tremors, and Ralph with a twitch. But in the end we'd always succeed. We'd lie side by side exhausted and spent, and deliriously happy we'd vow, "That's how it will be in the very end."
How long had it been since we pledged our love in this way? Lately, there was never time. Could it be that my involvement with Karen, my deceased sister's runaway child, took so much effort that I had neglected to realize Ralph's needs?
Or was Ralph merely going through male menopause?
I had waited to tell Karen last of the impending divorce. What would she say? I feared how it might affect her. Even though she was almost eighteen, she still needed a stable home.
"Huh? Don't worry! I'll stay with you." Perhaps it was the tone of unexpected casualness in her words, simple and plain, that dragged me out of my cocoon.
Karen, who for so long had been our confused, lost, tormented soul, in the hour of my greatest pain was the one who hauled me out of the depth of my despair. And I began to perceive a life without Ralph as possible.
Not long after, however, on a day in October when the
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valley was filled with unexpected thunder, Ralph came home early. "If you still want to see that counselor," he said, "I'll come along. Perhaps you were right. Perhaps we should give it another try."
Mystified by the unexpected, I asked, "What made you change your mind?"
And Ralph answered in a somber tone. "Yesterday, I went to look at an apartment." He paused and turned his back to me. "A very nice apartment, but all of a sudden it struck me," he turned to face me again, "you wouldn't be there when I would come home."
I gasped a sigh of relief, and while collecting the fragments of my heart I began to envision the possibility of, once again, playing the game.
Christa Holder Ocker
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Hussy Sunsets
[EDITORS' NOTE: This letter was written in 1941 by the author to her brother. She noted: "This letter sounds kind of sillyand it no doubt is. Maybe it would sound better if I could talk to youbut I can't. So you'll have to take it in a letter, and have the kindness to remember that your sister Milly was always considered a bit peculiartho' perfectly harmless."]
Dear Chuck:
Letters of congratulations are hard for me to write. There are conventional and proper things to say and conventional and proper ways to say them: "Congratulations!" "Every wish for happiness," "Life's greatest adventure," etc. These things are true, but they are a bit trite, and have been said so many times that they' re practically meaningless.
Other things are true. (Although it is considered very inappropriate to talk about them!) You'll rebel sometimes, and you'll hate being tied down, and you'll regret your lost freedom. Well, don't regret; never regret anything. While I can't claim an oriental fatalism, nor yet the old Puritan belief in predestination, still I think things even up pretty much in the long run. Married you'll have a lot
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of fun and a lot of grief; single you'd have a lot of fun and a lot of loneliness.
Sure you'll rebel sometimesalthough right now you're sure you won't. One day, you'll be at work near quitting time and you're not really busy. You'll wonder how in the hell you're going to get the car payment together and the final notice on the gas bill came last night, but besides that Gretchen had made a date to play bridge with some stuffy people who bore you to tears. You light a Wing (you're smoking Wings now instead of Philip Morris) and look out the window: I always see a ship sailing into a strange wonderful unknown; youbeing of a younger generation probably hear the drone of a plane, or see a flash of wings among the clouds.
The sun is setting, a brazen hussy of a sunset, beckoning you with sleeves of scarlet and gold. "Come with meI'll show you fun and adventure and excitement. To hell with the car payment. I may burn you and starve you and lead you to a devil's life; but I promise you, you won't be bored. Come on, before you're old and stodgy and have a stomach, I shan't want you then!"
You don't answer the hussy; you're much too good a husband for that, but you mutter to yourself: "I would: by God, I would if I weren't married. I'd walk right out of this place and down to the docks and take a job on the first tramp steamer that would have me; maybe I will anyway!" You don't of course, because you're a Carr and we don't walk out on things. You go home and notice how much better your lawn looks than the one next door (he's a lazy fellow anyway); and that climbing rose that you planted to cover the gas metersay that's doing alright: You go in and there is Gretchen, her hair all over her head and her make-up sweated off and she has flour on her cheek and she is very sweet. It's hot and she has been making peanut butter cookiesthe kind you like. You
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kiss her with special fervor because you love her and because you feel just a bit guilty for listening to that hussy sunset.
You go into the living room and pick up the paper. You read the funnies and slip off one shoe; you read the sports and off comes the other. You're just turning to the news when Gretchen calls from the kitchen (she's peeling spuds)"Honey, there's just enough time to water the lawn before dinner's ready. Don't you think you ought to do it now? We won't have time after," you remember that dratted bridge game and grumble, but you water the lawn.
The sunset is still therefading now but still a hussy, no longer beckoning but jeering you with one scarlet streak of wicked merriment. And you have the wit to jeer right back because you've had your dream. And besides, the steak's about done, you can smell it and it smells pretty damned good compared to the empty promises of a hussy sunset!
And Gretchen has her dreams, too, don't forget that! She doesn't really care much about cooking, and she hates wearing sixty-nine-cent hose and doesn't like smoking Wings any better than you do. Oh yes! She, too, dreams after the sunset; why else do you think she made those cookies on such a hot day?
These dreams are good, and if you're lucky you'll always have them for when they stopthen you're old! These dreams are yours, your own private "yours," and it isn't cheating to keep a little bit of yourself to yourself. But the real fun in marriage is sharing. Sharing plans and responsibilities and memories of course, we all know that. But sharing more too, talk and little private jokes no one else thinks are funny and glances and the funnies in bed on Sunday morning. Jan Struther in Mrs. Miniver says "the most important thing in marriage is not a home and
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children or a remedy against sin, but simply there being always an eye to catch." And talk, that's important, too. It may not seem so now when kisses are so much more exciting, but believe me, it is important. Not chatteranyone can chatterbut being able to talkreally talktogether, without embarrassment or restraint, is real and important and lasting. I've left out sex, haven't I? And although sex isn't all there is to marriage, as many youngsters seem to think, it is a very real and definite and important part of marriage. And a perfector even goodsexual adjustment between two people doesn't just happen or come about by instinct (in spite of romantic stories and the movies), it must be learned: learned through patience and thoughtfulness and unselfishness, and it is worth the learning.
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Have I shown the picture too black? It isn't really! Marriage is like all lifea background of gray highlighted by splashes of color; gay yellows and passionate red; the content and serenity of blues and greens, and occasionally a somber purple. And that's best. A world of continual purple and red would drive the rest of us nuts.
So endeth the first lessonain'tcha glad!
Milly VanDerpool
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Two Brothers
Once upon a time in a far away land, lived two young men, much like many young men you may know today . . .
The two brothers were likable, but undisciplined, with a wild streak in them. Their mischievous behavior turned serious when they began stealing sheep from the local farmersa serious crime in this pastoral place, so long ago and far away. In time, the thieves were caught. The local farmers decided their fate: The two brothers would be branded on the forehead with the letters ST for "sheep thief." This sign they would carry with them forevermore.
One brother was so embarrassed by this branding that he ran away; he was never heard from again.
The other brother, filled with remorse and reconciled to his fate, chose to stay and try to make amends to the villagers he had wronged. At first the villagers were skeptical and would have nothing to do with him. But this brother was determined to make reparation for his offenses.
Whenever there was a sickness, the sheep thief came to care for the ill with soup and a soft touch. Whenever there was work needing to be done, the sheep thief came to help with a lending hand. It made no difference if the
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person were rich or poor, the sheep thief was there to help. Never accepting pay for his good deeds, he lived his life for others.
Many years later, a traveler came through the village. Sitting at a sidewalk café eating lunch, the traveler saw an old man with a strange brand on his forehead seated nearby. The stranger noticed that all the villagers who passed the old man stopped to share a kind word, to pay their respects; children stopped their play to give and receive a warm hug.
Curious, the stranger asked the café owner, "What does that strange brand on the old man's forehead stand for?"
"I don't know. It happened so long ago . . ." the café owner replied. Then, pausing briefly for a moment of reflection, he continued: ". . . but I think it stands for 'saint.'"
Willanne Ackerman
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At Wit's End
Every once in a while, something happens in our lives to cause us to reshuffle our priorities. Sometimes it's a traumatic birthday or a friend facing a crisis. To me, it was the funeral of a good friend that left me vulnerable, confused and doubtful as to what I am all about.
I wanted to draw all our savings out of the bank and go to Tahiti. I wanted to put the plastic dishes in the driveway and back over them with a car. I wanted to take ballet lessons. Throw away all the imitation flowers and replace them with a jungle of vines and greenery. I wanted to take up all the carpets and let the dust fall where it wanted to.
That very night, I took a look at my life, rearranged my cards into a whole new hand and made a vow. I am not going to be like the woman on the Titanic who, as she climbed into the lifeboat facing an uncertain future, sobbed in anguish, ''If I had known this was going to happen, I'd have had the chocolate mousse for dessert."
So get ready, world! Miss Practical is going to start living each day like it's her last.
Remember that big candle in the sitting room that's shaped like a rose that gathers dust and gets soft in the summer? I lit it yesterday.
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And the car windowthe one on my side that has a thin crack in it that we said we'd have replaced when we sell the car? Well, it's been replaced.
Guess who's coming to dinner on Sunday? Evie and Jack, whom we have seen at sixteen weddings and say the same thing every time: "We've got to get together."
And that big tin of fish that I didn't want to open because I'm the only one who eats fish and I couldn't bear to waste the rest of it? Well, so what!
As I washed my hands with a piece of pink soap shaped like a sea shell, my husband said, "I thought you were saving those. You got them wet and they don't look like a shell anymore."
I looked down at the handful of suds. A shell only holds life, I had just given it a chance to be something more.
Erma Bombeck
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MORE CHICKEN SOUP?
Many of the stories and poems you have read in this book were submitted by readers like you who had read earlier Chicken Soup for the Soul books. We are planning to publish five or six Chicken Soup for the Soul books every year. We invite you to contribute a story to one of these future volumes.
Stories may be up to twelve hundred words and must uplift or inspire. You may submit an original piece or something you clip out of the local newspaper, a magazine, a church bulletin or a company newsletter. It could also be your favorite quotation you've put on your refrigerator door or a personal experience that has touched you deeply.
To obtain a copy of our submission guidelines and a listing of upcoming Chicken Soup books, please write, fax or check one of our Web sites.
Chicken Soup for the (Specify Which Edition) Soul
P.O. Box 30880 Santa Barbara, CA 93130
fax: 805-563-2945
Web site: www.chickensoup.com
You can also visit the Chicken Soup for the Soul site on America Online at keyword: chickensoup.
Just send a copy of your stories and other pieces, indicating which edition they are for, to any of the above addresses.
We will be sure that both you and the author are credited for your submission.
For information about speaking engagements, other books, audiotapes, workshops and training programs, please contact any of the authors directly.
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SUPPORTING OTHERS
With each Chicken Soup for the Soul book we publish, we designate one or more charities to receive a portion of the profits. Charities we support include the National Arbor Day Foundation, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Habitat for Humanity and Feed the Children.
A portion of the proceeds from Chicken Soup for the Unsinkable Soul will be donated to the Special Olympics and The Juvenile Diabetes Foundation.
The Special Olympics provides sports training and competitions year-round and cost-free to all persons eight years of age and older with mental retardation. There are currently over 1 million athletes participating in Special Olympics programs throughout the world.
Special Olympics helps persons with mental retardation to find and fulfill their unique roles in the Circle of Life. Special Olympics respects the unique qualities that every life brings to this world. Their organization makes it possible for its athletes to develop their talents and abilities so that they might experience the everyday joys that many people take for granted. And isn't that really what life's all about?
Special Olympics, Inc.
1325 G Street NW, Suite 500
Washington, DC 20005
phone: 202-628-3630
fax: 202-824-0200
www.specialolympics.org
The Juvenile Diabetes Foundation (JDF) is a not-for-profit, voluntary health agency with chapters and affiliates throughout the world. JDF's main objective is to support and fund research to find a cure for diabetes and its complications. JDF gives more money directly to
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diabetes research than any other private health agency in the world.
The organization awards research grants for laboratory and clinical investigations and sponsors a variety of career development and research training programs for new and established investigators.