The Problem with Parking Lots

Parking lots are an evil necessity. People do very weird things in them. How many of us have parked our car, opened the door and put our foot down to step in...heaven only knows what. In a sadistic way, I can't help but try to analyze exactly what it is. Is it somebody's cold latte from the day before that they have dumped out to make room for their fresh, hot one today? Or could it be the worse imaginable, the "V" word? And, if it is vomit, is it baby vomit (more politely called spit-up), child vomit, or big people's vomit? There is a huge difference in my mind. Vomit from children under the age of say 6 months-2 years is no problem, ages 2-6 not too bad, 6-12 it's getting gross, and if it's teenage stuff--well we all know what a teenager's diet consists of. If it looks adult-like--well, they probably shouldn't have drank so much the night before. One time, in the mall parking lot, I saw a woman and man walking along, and the woman projectile vomited something white, and stopped only for a brief moment and then continued on her merry way. I fantisized that she was having morning sickness; somehow it made me feel better about the whole thing, even though I had a hard time getting that picture wiped out of my memory for quite sometime. (Now we know why Jessica is like she is. It must be genetic.) Anyway, I digress.

Parking lots just seem to be the place for people to spit their gum, pour out drinks, dump dirty diapers (they certainly don't want to drive home with that stinking thing in their car), and leave their fast food leftovers and garbage. Whose mother do they think is going to clean up this stuff?I was a stickler about teaching my kids not to litter. We used to debate on the way to school as to whether it was permissible to toss out a banana peel or apple core. This was way out on country roads where it was possible for something to biodegrade way before the next car would come along. To leave any piece of garbage, no matter if it was only the size of a chewing gum wrapper, in a parking lot would have meant sure and swift punishment. I wonder if the people leaving their garbage in the lots had mothers that taught them anything?

But probably at the top of my list of the "Most Annoying Things People Do in Parking Lots' (and on sidewalks) is men who feel compelled to spit luggies. What is it with men that they like to hack that stuff up and spout it out only for some nice girl in a pair of flip flops to set her foot on? And to top it off, they have no sense of propriety; they do it right in front of you. Come on men. Didn't your mommas teach you better?

Hospice Work

Hospice work is....well...its kind of like....well, sort of...indescrible. It is an everyday occurence for someone from medical records to notify me that a patient has died. Sometimes it happens every day and sometimes several times a day. It's not your run of the mill job. When someone from Medical Records tell me that Mrs. So and So has died, I say "thank you" -- for lack of knowing what else to say. Working in the office, all I know about most of the patients is a very brief medical sketch. Details such as age, diagnosis, caregiver, address, etc. Most profiles aren't terribly shocking since most of our patients are elderly. No surprises there. Being educated thoroghly about the grim fact that breast cancer will touch 1 in every 8-10 (depending on which statistics you read) women takes the edge off of surprise when I see a woman in her 40's dying of breast cancer. It's the thirty somethings that shock me. The really painful ones for me are not those who have been ravaged by MS or cancer but those who have been brought to the end of themselves by the destruction of substance abuse. I wonder where it all started. That first beer seemed so harmless. Now with a swollen liver that makes the abdomen resemble a 10 month pregnancy and pain that is sometimes difficult to manage it doesn't seem so harmless. It is the way of man. God has given us everything good to enjoy, but it is man's tendency to take it and abuse it. This young man is my son's age. Ah, just another day in the life of hospice.

Letting Go- A Mother's Day Thought

I had missed seeing them for sometime because I had been going in to work later, but this morning I hit the corner of Circle and Walnut just in time. As I stopped at the light, I watched as the little Asian boy in his white hooded sweatshirt bolted across the crosswalk in front of my car. His short legs moved as fast as they would carry him and his small frame, ladened with a heavy blue backpack, leaned far over his tennis shoes, almost as if he was deterimidly fighting a headwind. But it was a lovely morning, and there was no more than a slight morning breeze. But something was terribly amiss; and then I saw her. The same lovely, petite Asian mommy that I would always see walking her son to school each morning. But now she she was standing alone near the crosswalk, leaning against the sign and stretching her neck as she anxiously poised herself to dart out to save him in case any danger threatened to overtake him. He made it safely across and continued at top speed towards the school only to ever so briefly turn his head to catch her eye as if to say, "I'm o.k. Mom."

And so it is with mothering (and fathering). There is a season for handholding and going the path with them, and there is a time to let go. There comes a day when they don't physically need us to cross the street, or for that matter the world. And, that's precisely one of the goals of parenting. But we are forever vigilant to watch, to care, to pray, and to hope that they take a minute to make contact and let us know that they are "o.k".