Part 7 The TRAGIC TALE: The Dramatic Conclusion

I guess it's time to try to end this story... the story that Marylin and family had read in the newspaper... a story I didn't want anyone to hear on that first day of fifth grade.  It is a story that still brings with it - an emotional response of the little boy left behind at Salton Sea. Healed? Yes... absolutely, but whenever we suffer like this (as with physical wounds) scar tissue remains.

It is possible that those scars not only serve to remind us of the things that are important... family, forgiveness, love, care, protection...but those scars can also remind us how God can use ugly things to beautifully shape us.  I am reminded of that by a response I received to The TRAGIC STORY part 5...

This is from a person very near and dear to me... one of those to whom my amazing mother had opened our hearts and our home.  If there is a picture that can be sadder than that dirty little boy left behind by his family at Salton Sea... it is the picture of baby twins abandoned on the beach in Marina Del Rey.

THIS IS WHAT SHE WRITES:  "I wish I was there to love that little boy. There is something amazing here Mark. Much of what you have so eloquently put into words mimic some of my own experiences. We have something in common as a result - God used the hurts and built in us a compassion that could only come from Him. We both have chosen to tap into this professionally and personally - you as a pastor, me as a nurse. My kids will always know how much I love them - as I know yours do too. We both are drawn to those who are hurting - to love them. I believe your hurts fueled the unconditional love you showed to me and David when we became part of your family. We now have an unbreakable, God given bond forever. His plan at work..."

Perhaps it was this searing sense of loneliness that burned in me a driving desire for connection to God. Who knows, as Lisa above has just reminded me, maybe it is this funny, tragic and ugly story that has beautifully shaped me for ministry that desires nothing more than to let people knew they are loved by a passionate God who relentlessly pursues them.

The Conclusion:

The officer stepped towards the station wagon with only the faint, red-glow of the neon signs from the aging Pink Pump dive that was several hundred yards away.  With jaw set and a telling red glow, the officer approached as the apprehensive crew silently held their collective breath. Mrs. D hid in the tiny toilet stall and the other kids in the trailer had been cleverly buried in camping gear. Mr. D's hand was perched and ready to strike.The tribe had taken the oath and nobody was about to give away the fact that bodies were stashed illegally in the trailer.

In an effort to control his temper, the Highway Patrol officer began the conversation in low tones. "Evening, Mr. Dahlin" he said.

"What's seems to be the problem, officer?"  Asked Mr. D apprehensively.  This had already upset the officer of the law - Abandoning young children is the problem he thought... What kind of parents would do such a thing...dropping them off one by one at the most desolate locations on the planet?

Not giving his cards away, he calmly replied. "Uh, Mr. Dahlin, is this your family traveling with you?"

"Why, yes it is your honor...officer!"

The officer looked into the window and tried to count the number quickly... He counted 11.  But was informed that the number was between 15 and 17...  Mr. Dahlin was obviously lying.

"Mr. Dahlin, um...it would be safe to say that all of your children are all here, correct?" The trap was set!

Mr. D gripped the back of the seat, showing the tense white knuckles, to let the boys know what was at stake... (the threat of "THE HAND")."Um...boys is everyone here?" he turned and hollered rhetorically over his shoulder.

"Yes, dad... we're all here" came a tentative reply from the back seat.
"Why, yes officer, we're all here!" Dad said nervously.

The officer's blood boiled and his heart was still racing from the pumping adrenaline of his high-speed pursuit.  "Mr. Dahlin"  He said, raising his voice, exposing the anger he has been suppressing. Syllable by sharp syllable, the officer continued louder, "Mr. Dahlin, are all of your kids in the car with you?"

"Is everybody back there?" Dad asked, squeezing the seat so hard, with his threatening fingers, that he almost poked holes in the upholstery .

The boys did a fake head count - making sure to count some of the sticky bodies twice... "Yes Dad, we're all here..."

Even before dad could repeat the answer, the officer yelled, "MR. DAHLIN, DO. YOU. HAVE. A. SON. NAMED. MARK?"

Flustered, Dad turned and ask the mob in the backseat, "Do I have a son named Mark?" This was not the right thing to do at that moment.

Now, sure that this was a conspiracy being covered up by the entire clan, the officer grabbed his billy-club and asked Mr D. to step out of the car. As dad slowly grabbed the door handle...Karl in back yelled up front "Uh, dad...I think we might have left Mark back at Salton Sea."

"YOU! THINK!" Screamed the officer, spraying spit on everyone one in the front of the car... not once, but twice, "YOU THINK!" He yelled, showering everyone and everything within a ten foot radius.

I have to break before continuing with a bit of commentary. Obviously, those in front thought I was in the back and those in back thought that I was up front  - strategically placed by Wolf Pack for THE HAND!

Okay, this makes sense (I mean, after all, the mother and step-father of Jesus did the same thing leaving Him behind so I guess this is a natural mistake that can happen to the best of us. Just ask my daughter about the hockey rink incident of 2001).

Anyway, this wasn't rocket science! Think about it...
               1) An officer pulls you over and he knows you by name.
               2) He asks if your entire family is in the car with you.
               3) He asks you to take a head count to see if anyone is missing.
               4) He asks if you have a son named Mark.
               5) He asks if your son Mark is in the car.

Okay, so you thought he was secretly hiding away in the trailer with Mrs D and the overflow, but come on, by number 2, any normal person probably should have had a clue!  (The operative word in that last sentence was "normal" but then again any normal person doesn't take 62 people to Salton sea - illegally hiding half in that abominable thing we called a trailer.)

Normal or Not...the next thing my dad said was not the thing you say to an irate officer of the law.  Mind you, my dad was both frugal and practical. In his mind he figured:

         1) Why would a intelligent highway patrol officer go through all this trouble of chasing him down and  not bring the kid!
         2) Had he brought the kid - this whole mess would have been over and done with.
         3) What was easier, more practical and economical?
         4) Now Mr. D would have to spend all of this time unhooking the trailer, leaving it in Indio, making a    recon run all the back to Salton Sea and then back again.
      5) Think of the time...think of the money...(in his mind he was thinking "What's wrong with this police officer?")

Computing and thinking and weighing in on all the consequences is the reason my dad blurted out the way he did...  Dad said, "You mean, he's back at Salton Sea?"

Nostrils flared.. sucking in a gallon of air before responding... "Yes he is Mr. Dahlin!" said the officer with pursed lips and tight neck... doing all he could to hold himself back from choking the ring leader of this child abandonment campaign.

MR. D, "DO YOU MEAN I HAVE TO GO BACK AND GET HIM?" This made perfect sense to everyone in the car, but only served to infuriated the officer to the degree that it took great restraint not to pull out his billy club and clobber my father...
Hitting the dirt with his billy-club, the officer called for backup so they might restrain him from wielding his wooden baton  instrument on the top of a certain man's head.

Back at the diner, I had no idea what became of the the highway patrol's efforts to catch my family. I had to wait and see if I was to be an indentured servant, end up in an orphanage, or if my dad and the Wolf Pack would return for me.

In my pathetic Zombie-like state I stared at my little cheeseburger...my blessing - manna from heaven and gulped...and tried, but still could not swallow even a sesame seed. (insert cheeseburger song here). 

It was late - nearly the middle of the night and I had been holding on to my Popsicle stick as though it represented holding onto my family... hoping against hope!

Then the door at the far end of diner burst open with dad and a small reconnaissance crew. People in the restaurant cheered. My dad and the four older brothers took one look at me and ran in my direction.

This is the point in the story where everything goes into slow motion... (If I had a background track for this part of the story, it would be the Chariots of Fire music where all of those guys are running on the beach in slow motion)...

Hum if you know what I'm talking about...  "du, du, du, du, du, du....du, du, du, du, du"
Pushing dad aside, the brothers ran towards me with outstretched arms... I was loved and I was missed. (more of the sound track)... they wanted me! I had not been erased. Slow motion they ran...it was all about me! I was loved!

I smiled and set my Popsicle stick on the table... my chest stopped heaving and my throat cleared enough for me to take a bite of that beautiful cheeseburger. I had earned it, and now it was time.

With their arms outreached and happy faces, they ran to me as I stood up on the seat of that blue vinyl seat and opened my arms to receive their smothering hugs.

In slow motion, the boys raced each other and dived on the table fighting for my cheeseburger.

They wolfed it down along with the fries and watery malt...  (I found a fry that had fallen onto the seat and ate it)... and my angel had disappeared.

One of the men in the restaurant said, "If it was me, and I was their father, I would have left all of them here to die a slow death"

There is no place like home! I made it back to Venice and we lived happily ever after?!?

Until a week later, when I joined the cunning Wolf Pack in a game of hide-N-seek!

Part 5 The TRAGIC TALE: Twilight Saga of Biblical Proportions

Did you ever have a life defining moment when things just didn't seem to go your way.  When searing pain and bitter disappointment seemed to build a nest in your heart. Those times when you feel let down or stabbed in the back by someone close whether a parent, a spouse, a brother, a sister, or a best friend. Why do those wounds seem to be the worst, as if a dagger had been plunged into your heart and irreparably ripped open. Why do these particular wounds feel like it may take forever to heal? I think the reason things like betrayal, abandonment and wounds (especially from those close to us) hurt so bad is because we were created for close connections. We were designed and wired for close intimate relationships and have this expectation that love will protect and that love is forever. What a crushing blow to discover that as humans we are fickle and committed more to the protection of self at any cost, than the tremendous cost that true love demands... 

Since we live in this tension of constantly being let down, I guess as humans, we have to figure out how to cope with disappointments and where to turn for healing for these lingering wounds... Perhaps this is why some of the deepest scares are those bore by children, because their emotional capacity is not yet developed to handle abuse, cruelty and exploitation at the hands of those they placed so much trust.

Yep, kids are especially fragile.

It was hot and dry at Salton Sea, but an invisible tornado of emotional destruction was headed towards the Marina as the Dahlins prepared to depart their 4 inglorious days of camping. The boys were fighting for places in the car, Mrs. D was yelling, "Under pain of mortal sin" beckoning all those that couldn't squeeze into the Dodge to join her and the girls to experience another three hours of "Shake 'N Bake" in the dreaded  trailer. Meanwhile, Dooh-Dooh Pants was intentionally passing gas as a means of terrorism that instigated a fight among the Wolf Pack as hot sweaty bodies pressed up against windows in the over-packed station wagon.

Meanwhile, Markie D happily bounded out the Diner with his red Popsicle. The four ounces of liquid and sugar would probably help him survive the terrible ride home bouncing around in the the hot trailer among the junk and gas fumes.

With both eyes focused on his ice-cold Popsicle, Markie D reached up and grabbed the handle of the trailer (that he was forced to ride in by his older brothers).

NOTHING! He grabbed nothing, but a fist full of air. The trailer had vanished! Bam, just as if it had been sucked into the tractor beam of an alien spaceship.  In panic he looked up into the troposphere, but could not see a UFO!
(Now back to first person) 

It was happening...I was begin erased. I looked up and saw the caravan of bodies stuffed in the old Dodge and trailer pulling out of the parking lot. THEY HAD LEFT ME BEHIND! Was this a cruel trick? Did they plan this? Was it a conspiracy to get rid of me? Why did mom let them leave without me?

DIDN'T ANYONE CARE? Was I just refuge like the dirt washed off all those dirty bodies to run waste in the gutter. Not a single lick of my red Popsicle, I ran up the slight incline of the marina onto the two lane highway after my family. They were moving slow, I thought I could catch 'em. I ran as fast as the legs of a 9-year-old could run, but the lights on the back of that trailer got smaller and smaller and smaller. I stood and watched.

This was before the era of 911 and cell phones. I was left to die in the desert. I stood on that hot asphalt and stared at the fading tail lights of my departing family until they had completely disappeared. My world was small and I knew I lived in Venice, but nothing more than that. I was lost, alone and abandoned.

I couldn't take one lick of my red Popsicle as I sadly shuffled back to the staging area - at the curb outside the Diner. I sat on the curb and sorely missed my family - sure that I would never see them again. I wondered if this is what Joseph (in the Bible) felt like when his older brothers and sold him into slavery and left him stranded in the desert. I was sure someone would steal me and I would be held prisoner to a wondering band of Salton-Sea-ites.

I sat on the curb as the melting red dye dripped down my arm and pooled into a puddle of red and dirt next to my feet.  I sat. I sat holding my red stick as though it was the last remaining remnant of my family. I would not let go of my little red Popsicle stick.

I knew one prayer, "The Our Father" but was too choked up to squeese one syllable out of my parched dry lips. I cried and sat as TWILIGHT turned to horrid dusk!  Me and my Popsicle stick and my puddle of red mud that had dripped from my elbow. This was probably the most pathetic sight recorded in the history of the universe. An blonde haired aborigine with one clean red streak that ran from my tight fist of my right hand to tip of my elbow. My heart felt like it was begin squeezed in a vice as I felt my existence fade.

LEFT!
        ALONE!
                  ABANDONED!
                                     FORGOTTEN!

 I wanted to go back to the crazy, dysfunctional, wonderful family that had let all the monkeys out of the zoo.

I sat and cried until I had no more moisture left in my body to produce any more tears... "drenched to the bone." The hardest part, I guess, was that nobody noticed!

 

"The times they are, a changing" 

At least for me they were. 

I reckon that the universal question that we all have to wrap our minds around at some point in our lives is: Why do bad things happen to good people?  

A Tribute to the Late and Great Mrs. D. and all women.

Mrs D. we called her as kids...sometimes Joan! She was funny, crazy, sincere, smart, religious, (my Sixth Grade Teacher - that's for another day) but for now, mom (as I learned to call her as God changed my heart to love her) HAPPY MOTHER"S DAY.

This Mother's Day tribute might go out to all moms, and to all those women who wanted to be moms, and last but not least to all those women -  that had moms (I think that covers all of you ladies).

My mom – gave me a rich heritage of faith – modeled by the fact that she was always in church… (could you blame her –  the poor thing. With all of us kids - she had to be).

My mom was a generous person… always giving her money away without any questions asked.

My mother taught me the meaning of contradiction. She would say to us… “If you fall down off that roof and kill yourself – I break your neck..  or IRONY, "Keep on laughing, and I’ll give you something to cry about."

She taught me how to hang in there 

My mom unconditionally reached out to strangers – 1) She told every bank teller and every grocery store clerk all her stories. 2) She took every stray kid in off the streets.

My mom demonstrated what it meant to be a servant. She was always rushing to rescue us whenever we had a bad battery, out of gas, a leg broken or one that was nearly severed off (that was me) or whenever we dropped our keys in the bottom of the lake a hundred miles away or needed help typing term papers (or for the older boy - needed help writing a term paper).

My mother taught me about science and health and English!

For Genetics she said,  “If you keep making that face it’ll stick like that." 

For Health she would say,  “If you don’t eat your vegetables you won’t grow up." Or "If you eat them, it'll put hair on your chest."  (I guess I never ate my vegetables).

For English she'd say, "A turkey in the oven in done, you on the other hand are finished." 

She was brilliant. She could watch I Love Lucky on TV… be on the phone and carry on a conversation with Ida Nargie across the street, have the newspaper open reading an article and at same time should could be typing one of the boys term-papers on a typewriter without making a single mistake. 

She taught me how to be independent. 

She taught me how to achieve my Black Belt. When she locked herself in her room and wouldn't come out... I had to learn to defend myself against my 42 older brothers... exaggeration.  

I guess there is a lot I could be mad about but instead I made a conscious mental decision to let go of the childhood junk – that we as adults hold on to as baggage.  

Good, bad, or ugly… at some point my attitude towards her has to do with the inner working of my heart.  

THANKFULNESS AND FORGIVENESS are great healers.  

No matter how bad it may have been for you - look at this this way - you’re alive – a mother brought you into this world – even if you were given up for adoption... she loved you enough to have you… even if that is the only one thing you have to be thankful for – rehearse it and thank the Good Lord for it!

You woke up this morning” (in other words – I’m alive I have something to be thankful for).

For all those women who dreamed of being mothers, but couldn't have children... who never got married... know that you are not second class women -  YOU ARE LOVED.

To the women who have had an abortion - Know that your child is in heaven and that you are forgiven. 

Women today, I celebrate you.  KERRY I LOVE YOU.  Kiera, (my daughter and future mother of my grandkids), I'm proud of you.

For now I'm done... Oops ...I mean "I'm finished!"