The Big C ate my Blog

I wrote this to explain why I have not been keeping up my blog. In fact for a while I forgot I had one...

Blinded by the Gold

During the Winter of Five Snowpocalalypses in Boston, in a chemo-induced cabin fever my husband and I viewed many DVD’s from the library. 

It has been nearly a year since my husband’s sudden diagnosis and treatment started, requiring chemo, radiation, surgery, more chemo and surgery. We kind of moved into the bedroom of our flat because sitting for him was less comfortable than being in bed. So we moved the rabbit ears and decoder box for digital broadcast into our bedroom because we don’t have cable or pay TV. We refuse to support cable cartels making us pay for unwanted channels. We hooked our dinosaur equipment up to our flat screen formerly only used for videos. Now we were wired. On cold days we could keep the heat down low; our bedroom was the warmest room in the house because of old ductwork, and the heat generated by our two laptops kept us warm. We had to give up our two cats when we moved into the apartment in our rabbit warren-like neighborhood per order of the landlord, but let it go!

While the Academy Award hoopla was going on we watched a movie from the library’s B section; The Blind Side made in 2009 starred one of our favorite Hollywood heroines, Sandra Bullock. You may recall, (it seems nearly everybody has already seen the movies we’re just catching up on) it is a true story of redemption when a wealthy Tennessee family inspired by a mother’s heart takes in and finally adopts a black homeless teenager in Memphis. Not far into the movie I strongly identified with Bullock because I myself have morphed into a she-bear more than once in defense of my cubs.

Big Mike, the gentle-giant type, was so good with a basket ball he was given the opportunity to go to a white-bread Christian prep school in spite of his poor academic record. Our youngest son, except for pigmentation, was a lot like Big Mike. In high school he was 6’2’ weighed 315 lbs. but played no sports, preferring a computer screen where he learned how to build combat robots.

Somehow the daughter of a Harvard football trainer had managed to raise three sons none of whom played contact sports, the older two preferring tennis and the youngest moved slowly but gracefully like Big Mike. But, my “baby” was growing taciturn since he transferred from Christian to public school in his teens and underachieved in most classes (like many of his teachers…but let that go).

Big Mike’s biological mom, had born many children for the State who took them from her, including Big Mike, because of her addiction to the drugs she used due to the pain of serial abandonment and loss.

In our roomy suburb I did not fully appreciate how some things on the Internet were polluting my child’s mind and fueled his rebellion. It was sheer relief when we shipped him off to college in Texas.

In my empty nest, with no boys to mow our considerable lawns in summer, nor shovel snow in the winter of ’07, real-estate values were going south rapidly. We put our house on the market thinking we might go to the inner city to help “the young black man”. This was the theme of a song my husband wrote. I quipped, “But how can we, Mr. and Mrs. Vanilla, be of any help?” Had I seen the Blind Sided movie, which did not come out until the following year, I might have had my epiphany sooner.

But at that time I was focusing on missteps in the Middle East and in particular, Israel. A magazine arrived one day with a cover photo that rocked my world. A youth dressed in shorts and T-shirt, wearing the same kind of socks and Vans sneakers my youngest son always wore, with close cropped hair like his, sat in a chair with his head leaning all the way back. His legs limply rested on the floor of the second floor dorm room which apparently had taken a hit from a rocket in Tel Aviv. The exterior walls were gone. Whether he was alive or dead you could not tell, but a thin trickle of blood ran from his nose down his chalky skin. His mouth gaped, his hand rested on rebar bent in the shape of a shepherd’s crook. Over him stood a young helmeted aid worker looking back for help, his expression said all; He is unsure if he was dealing with a survivor or a corpse.

This photo so stunned me I had to call my son at college in the middle of the day just to hear his voice and convince myself that the subject was not my son. I was so relieved to hear my son’s voice that after the call I immediately and profusely thanked God that my son was safe in Texas. I felt an immediate response from Him in my heart…”But that is my child and I want you to pray for him as you would for your own children.” I got it. That’s the best way I can explain why I care about Israel. I do because God cares for them like a firstborn child.

So in watching this familiar situation in the movie, I was blind-sided like mama Bullock who so felt the unspoken need of this young black man, she opened her life, home, family and wallet to a very sweet but lost soul who just needed some love and direction, in which mama Bullock excelled.

I loved the scene at the football game where Big Mike is taking a verbal and physical pounding from a smaller but highly skilled opponent. That kid’s redneck father sat a few rows behind Bullock, his mindset was the headwater of the stream of verbal abuse and ugly racism spouted by him and his son.

“Sticks and stones” mama Bullock reminded her children to ignore the nasty comments, but ultimately she could take it no longer. She stood up turned and called to the loudmouth…”Hey!… Deliverance!...Zip it up or I’ll come zip it up for ya!” This coming from a beautiful woman dressed impeccably, wearing high heels in a stadium stunned the bigoted blighter into silence. Score one for momma bear!

Where am I going with this? Back to the Oscars, a hypocritical and orgiastic display of self gratification for making tons of money while spinning stories. Movies like Fifty Shades of Grey made millions while sending out a dangerous message to our youth. Selma took the story of Martin Luther King and twisted it into reverse racism, co-opting good, worse yet, stealing God’s true glory giving it to man. I could go on... but let it go!

Update Jan. 28, 2016   I stand corrected! I actually saw Selma this week, got it at the library, and I loved it. So sorry the star, David Oyelowo, did not get an Oscar last year. He deserved it. I had a negative response to the Oscar night representation of the film and the rap song lyrics but the film portrayed MLK and the civil rights activists with dignity. Too bad journalists have all moved to Left Field today.

 This article appeared in the Boston Broadside March 2015 edition