Memories, Resilience, and Renewal: A Journey Through Loss, Rights, and Everyday Battles

In Medgar and Myrlie, the jury for the trial of Byron De La Beckwith on January 28, 1964 for the murder of Medgar Evers consisted on twelve white men. Even though William Waller, the thirty-seven-year-old was an unapologetic segregationist, it didn’t mean he lacked ambition. Myrlie wanted to be respected as Mrs. Evers and win the conviction.

In The Jasad Heir, by Sara Hashem, Arin folds back Sylvia’s collar. Hanim observes that they may be able to use his fastidiousness to their advantage. Hardly stirring at raised blades, he apparently can’t tolerate a crooked collar.

Weapons arranged on top of a chest hover for a millisecond, before suddenly flying into a wall. When Sylvia opens her eyes, a fake sky greets her. Arin glowers.

Sylvia tells three women attending her she can bathe herself. Light flickers behind the eyes of ivory masks propped in front of every candle. A honey-soaked coil of fried dough shifts with the rise of Marek’s chest, as Sylvia squeezes the excess water from her drying hair.

Sylvia’s patience has its limits. She needs an anchor home. Her hair falls in shiny ropes around her.

My new water heater was expected to arrive sometime on Thursday. I’ve learned to boil water on the stovetop for dishes and use an immersion heater for my bath. I took late naps waiting for it to finally heat up on night of March 23 to 97.7 degrees Fahrenheit. The next night, I’d started earlier to give it at least an hour to heat up. For the prior two days, the pilot light on the old heater has gone completely out and wouldn’t restart.

I learned to not take for granted having hot water on demand. By taking time to heat the bath, the oils put out a relaxing aroma before I even set foot in the tub—something to remember—taking a few more moments to relax in the moment. It’s kind of ironic that I was in a hurry to relax. I should remember to great the night like I great the day.

When I think of Mom, I remember a second floor apartment we shared in Turkey, a beautiful white snow spitz that she let me adopt named Gita after my Turkish babysitter. Mom told me that I spoke fluent Turkish before I learned English. I don’t remember a word of it. I do remember falling from a second story balcony, hitting my head on a pot, and my mother anxiously worried because she could see brain tissue where I had cracked it open.

I think of the tour through the ruins of the Parthenon, climbing on rubble, my Dad taking photos. We spent a couple of years in Turkey until we moved when I was four years old to Wiesbaden, Germany.

In Germany, Mom volunteered at the library, and in order to afford preschool, got a job waitressing at a small restaurant in a small outdoor mall in the local village. The village was located on the other side of a walking bridge that spanned the autobahn. I remember walking across the bridge with my Mom when we went shopping, the Dispsy Dodo bird that we bought, and the tapestry of the black forest that our family would eventually also buy and hang in our home.

When I got separated from my Mom one day, I walked back home by myself, over the autobahn, and past a field of cherry trees. My Mom rushed home to find me playing in the yard, with a new sense of confidence that I can find my way when I get in trouble. I was incredibly happy to see the smile on my mother’s face after she got a job. One of the lessons my Mom taught me is to have the courage to do what needs to be done when no one else is there.

The library where my mother volunteered was a short walk away near a wooded park that had swings and a small tower, with rust running down the side from the window at the top. The seeds from the maple trees would helicopter down around us. My mother had a love for walking, exploring, and enjoying nature. She also made sure she introduced me to books long before kindergarten.

We explored the culture in Germany. We took walks through hamlets, watched the Passion Play, and went through the salt mines in the Salzburg mountains, visiting a Christmas shop nestled deep inside. We took an open elevator to the top of the mountain where Eagles Nest was located and from there took a bus back to the place where we started the tour.

We had a blue and white Volkswagen bus that we used to go on for picnics and exploring whenever Dad had leave. I had a walking stick/cane with a metal stamp for every city that we visited. We were even invited to a German family’s home for dinner, where Dad could connect with his roots, and at a hotel restaurant, a German baker brought me out his lead soldiers as a gift when I belched over the best cherry pie I have ever had. Unfortunately for those lead soldiers, they were Nazis, and they would wind up battling my green army soldiers.

I remember the Christmases in our second floor apartment, music almost always playing, sitting in the kitchen while my Mom cooked, and her unveiling an oil painting of me she had done from a photo of me in a red and yellow sweater. Mom loved the arts and she loved religion.

I remember Swedish meatballs and Swedish pancakes. The holidays were a special time when food was made lovingly from scratch. We did cheat a little and used Bisquick for the Swedish pancakes.

When we moved to Michigan, and I started going to school in a public building in the third grade, I joined the Cub Scouts, and Mom became a Den Mother, albeit for a different den. Mom also volunteered as special education assistant teacher at the middle school. She got the opportunity to see Billy Graham live at one of his revivals and took me along. While in Michigan, we took Judo, Mom took me for swimming lessons, and I progressed through Webelos and into scouting. Mom even helped me draft a short story that received honorable mention in middle school. She kept that story close by, and made sure I brought it home with me on our last visit.

Mom supported and encouraged me when I took over not just one, but two paper routes in the on-base housing. She never complained about getting up early, helping me prepare the newspapers, and getting me to school. My Aunt Judy came to stay with us for awhile, as well as her parents, and I was 12 years old when we got the call from New Mexico that my Grandfather, her father, had died.

Mom loved to regale me with stories about Grandaddy Lindman, and I couldn’t help but love him as well.

We moved to Texas that same year, where my father would retire after doing twenty years in the air force. We bought a house, and enjoyed dinners at a table, except for Sunday nights where we would watch Disney together, with our food on TV trays.

Mom and I would go to the air show on the base, and one particularly windy day, I raced across the tent to grab the stake to hold it down. Another adults came over and helped. Mom always praised and reminded me of my leadership that day. Ours was the only tent left standing after the storm.

Mom got a job at the local Pizza Inn and worked her way up to assistant manager. She recruited me to go to work there with her and my sister. I worked my way up from dishwasher to cook, while my sister worked as a waitress. Mom worked at Dairy Queen, got a job at a gas station, and managed the Ice Cream Stop in the mall. When I was about to leave for college, she introduced me to a lawyer she knew that bought me clothes for college.

During my teenage years in Texas, my Mom was incredibly committed and courageous. She taught me how to approach my father who had PTSD, who had a tendency to wake up from a start, ready to fight. It was incredibly scary for me, but I learned how to cautiously approach scary situations, and to do so with compassion.

Mom and Grandma both would send me care packages when I went on active duty in the Navy, and when I got back we shared a semester at the local junior college. Mom has always been there for me, and even though I moved across the country, she has always been my first and dearest friend. Not a day goes by that I don’t hold her in my heart.

In Tea You at the Alter, by Rebecca Thorne, Kianthe finds a stuffed creature incredibly cute. Wylan bows when he accepts his gift. Reyna draws a slow breath and steps off to the side.

Serina and Bobbie appear to make amends. Hansen and his wife bustle behind the tavern’s bar. He calls that the drinks are coming right up when Reyna flags him down.

After the chaos that ensues, a large room is packed with important people. Reyna is the topic of conversation, encouraging her to be at least mildly more engaged.

Friday, I flew from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas. Up at 2:45 in the morning, my neighbor, who volunteered to check in on Callie and keep an eye out for my hot water heater delivery, gave me a ride to the airport on Frontier Airlines. I found the first leg of my flight from Salt Lake City to Denver uncomfortable, with the seat in an incredibly uncomfortable angle, no tray tables, and no free snacks or drinks.

We had to step off the plane and cross the tarmac to the terminal in chilly weather. Once inside, I made my way upstairs to find a place to get a breakfast sandwich and a mocha. Once back, I found a seat for my ten hour layover in Denver and found it incredibly uncomfortable as well. A couple hours later, I went to the nearest store, picked up a blanket, a child’s pillow to prop against my back, a turkey wrap for lunch, a coke zero, and a bag of trail mix for the flight to DFW. Once back to my seat in the terminal, I laid the blanket over the seat so my improvised back cushion wouldn’t slip through the seat to the floor. While I was sitting there, I happened to overhear a very loud altercation between a gate agent and a customer concerning their carry-on. They wound up missing the flight and were not happy at all. Meanwhile, the scanner was set to a rather loud and annoying double-chirp that seemed to go on forever as people checked in to their flight.

Once I finally arrived at DFW, my niece, her husband, and my sister gave me a ride back to my hotel room. Even though I had been offered to a stay in my Mom’s RV by her husband, I had declined because he had passive aggressively promised he might deadname me.

On the way, we stopped by my niece’s house, where she let me have a black dress that she claimed didn’t look right on her. It was nice to hang out for a bit before I had to head back to my room. There are tons of deer around the neighborhood that weren't there when I was growing up. The theory is that the all the development encroached on their reserves so they extended their habitat into the neighborhoods.

Just down the road, the room at the Motel 6 was significantly more spartan than I had anticipated. The only channel I could navigate to on the TV via the “clean remote” was Adult Swim. Neither conditioner, shampoo, nor lotion greeted me—only two tiny bars of soap. That said, I did enjoy being able to take a hot bath without having to wait two hours for the water to warm up.

The following day was Mom’s funeral. I shared my memories of Mom, and met with friends and family I hadn’t seen in ages. My youngest daughter even showed up, but she and her friend had to leave before I had a chance to say hello.

That afternoon after the funeral we gathered at my sister’s place. My uncle who had introduced me to computers now claims that AI is Satan, so I let the topic drop, and my little cousin in Haifa is becoming a rather well-know gymnast. After everyone else left, I went through some things my Mom had left behind, watched some videos with my sister, and then headed back to my room, where I pulled out my computer and watched the latest episode of Wild Cards.

Sunday morning, my sister gave me a ride back to the airport for my flight back to Salt Lake City. She gave me an oversize purse so I could board the plane without having to pay an upgrade fee for any more luggage. Transferring the blanket pillow, and some clothes to the bag, I was able to make it fit, but just barely. Boarding the nonstop flight back, the gate attendants didn’t police the carry on baggage as severely as I saw in Denver. Again, it was another day of getting my steps in. On the flight, I had a fun conversation with a geophysicist, with whom I had overlapping interests. Once we landed, I was fortunate to have a friend pick me up and bring me back home.

Finally, after almost two weeks without a hot water heater, and daily delays, the water heater was delivered today and will be hooked up tomorrow. I look forward to the extra ten gallons, burning less gas so I can breathe better, a twelve year warranty, leak-detection and ant-corrosion features, and smart control. I’ve survived this challenge, and look forward to a respite from taking two hours to warm up my batch water. I still need to unpack, my chores are backed up—of which this is one, and I needed to do some shopping for the ingredients I used to make Spicy Scallops with Tomatoes over Couscous in my Instant Pot today.

In The Art of Power, Nancy Pelosi tells how in her home and family life they had done everything possible to wall off the attack on her husband Paul in October, 2022. She didn’t think that her family would be a target. The twenty-four hour security by the Capitol Police only followed her.

The legislative session is over for the year. Pride flags are banned from government buildings, but the order is being ignored by multiple city officials. A bill to allow misgendering in classrooms was defeater. Collective bargaining was eliminated for state employees including teachers, but a referendum has been launched to get it back. Prisons are required to deny gender affirming care and treatment to trans inmates, and the ACLU of Utah is challenging that on the Eighth Amendment. Mail-In ballots in the state are reverting back to requiring opt-in instead of universal, but we can fight that by encouraging opt-in drives. Like having a hot water heater, we know what having our lives respected looks like without having to demand it. Like having it go out, we can and learn how to make do to get what we need. It will require some creativity, but we can do it. And like a hot water heater, we just need to make sure we continue to pay the price for our rights and our dignity, order it, and see it delivered and installed. And it won't be a replacement for what we lost, we will make sure that what we put in place will be better and will last longer.