Professor John Lienhard with the University of Houston hosts a program about the way inventive minds work. The show highlights people who’ve made the world a more interesting place.

One of the most fascinating things I’ve ever seen was at my sister’s place this past week. A little background – her house has flooded twice. Once was from a freak storm that settled over Alexandria, La., and the other was also weather related.

As anyone who’s ever had water damage knows, repairs are costly, and the house has a reputation, one that’s impossible to erase. Their home is on a slab, so Diane and John initially thought they were stuck – their beautiful home’s value would sink, and they’d always have the fear of flooding in the back of their minds whenever heavy rains hit the area.

But my sister never gives up. Whether it was fate or “big brother” listening in to her and John talking about raising the house, an ad for David Shoring, a company specializing in raising houses, appeared on her social media feed.

Intrigued, Diane started researching and found FEMA offers a Flood Mitigation Assistance grant that could pay up to 100% of a contract to raise a house that’s flooded at least twice. She remembered the ad and, two years ago, applied for the grant.

Diane would call and email every couple of weeks, but the federal government is a slow-moving machine. A few months ago, she got the word – her application had been fully funded.

They got bids but went with fate and lined up Davie Shoring to raise the house. A crew started with digging tunnels under the house by hand – some from the back of the house, some from the front. Wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow was filled, and there were mountains of dirt all around the house.

The technology uses stacks of concrete, square blocks with a whole in the middle, to stabilize the house. Inserted into the blocks would be steel bars. These blocks would be stacked up as the house rose and would serve as a new, higher foundation. The bars keep the concrete in place.

Thirty-six jacks were placed underneath the house on load-bearing walls. Each jack was connected to a giant meter board with thick cables to make sure all parts of the house were being raised at the same level at the same time.

Finally, lift day arrived. With wires and levels in place, Foreman Josh gave the word – they were ready.

Diane and John were nervous – this is their home and a company was promising they could safely raise their home five feet in the air.

Would the house crack? Would the walls cave in? Would the house fall to one side?

The motor started and the house went up one inch. Workers checked every meter on the truck and under the house to make sure the jacks were working in tandem.

Foreman Josh walked the inside of the house to make sure none of the walls were cracking. The process was working perfectly, so they cranked up the jacks again.

By the end of the day, the house was up almost five feet, the height the state of Louisiana now requires for homes to be raised.

By the end of the next day, stairs were in place in the front and the back. Dirt was smoothed back in place and concrete skirting will surround the house followed by landscaping.

My sister said the only thing out of place in the house was a picture fell over. The view from the windows now offers a beautiful panoramic of their property, and they are relieved and relaxed now that their beautiful home is safe from flood waters.

I keep picturing people who found a way to help owners whose homes were on a slab. Either due to changing weather patterns or newly created drainage problems, their homes were in danger.

Some creative folks found an innovative way to do something nobody ever thought possible.

Now that’s the way inventive minds think.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

I was listening to the radio when an old Beatles tune came on – “Day Tripper.”  I’d always thought the song was about a girl who liked to take trips to the sea, the beach or shopping for the day.

But then, 50 years later, it hit me – this song was about a girl taking an LSD trip. It took me a long time “to find out, but I found out.”

Why it didn’t occur to me that this song was about drugs makes me embarrassed. Most of the songs from the 60’s were about drugs.

“White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane was the most obvious. “One pill makes you bigger, one makes you smaller.” Even someone as dumb as me could figure that one out.

With Paul McCartney’s “Michelle,” I didn’t feel so dumb because some of the words were in French. Besides, most of us just mumbled the lines after “Michelle, ma belle.”

The theater was packed when I saw the movie “Hard Day’s Night.” I can blame all those girls in the audience for not knowing what line comes after “’cause when I’m lectured at home…” because everyone was screaming so loud.

I still get a smile on my face whenever I hear the song “Tiny Dancer” because someone in my family innocently sang “Hold me closer Tony Danza” instead of “Hold me closer Tiny Dancer.” I had to leave the room before busting into laughter.

Some 1980’s songs are still hard for me to figure out. Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride” is one of those. So is Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ On A Prayer.”

After reading the lyrics online and slapping my head for not being smart enough to figure out what the singers were saying, I’ve got a solution to not knowing the lyrics.

No, it’s not looking them up on your phone and then using the phone as a microphone so you can look at the words.

It’s mumbling.

Let’s face it – a lot of musicians are hard to understand so mumbling is quite all right. If the person with you is under the age of 40, they have no idea what the lyrics are about anyway.

Doubt that? Ask them what place in pop culture the phrases “dy-no-mite” and “good night, John Boy” hold.

Years ago, I took my teenage son to see “City Slickers.” When Billy Crystal, Bruno Kirby and Daniel Stern rode out at the end of the cattle on their horses drive humming the theme song from “Bonanza,” the entire audience erupted in laughter. My son leaned over and asked what was so funny.

The lyrics to kids songs are sometimes hard to remember. Maybe it’s because we’re sleep deprived. So forgive young moms if they can’t remember the third stanza to “Frosty the Snowman” or what foot comes first in “The Hokey Pokey.”

But, just like we can do with songs we can’t remember, all you young moms and grandparents have to do is mumble along or repeat the stanzas you know with a smile on your face. The toddlers will think you’re absolutely magical.

Don’t worry about knowing the lyrics to current pop songs. If those of us over the age of 30 knew the lyrics, the kids would drop those songs like we ran away from bell-bottom pants in the 80s.

So, if you don’t know all the words to “Bohemian Rhapsody,” just play the air guitar. Your kids will think you’re a rock star.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

Spring is finally here. The trees are blooming — ask my allergies – people are strolling around the block after dinner and the weatherman is no longer predicting a sudden freeze.

But the best sign of spring is seeing youngsters out in the ball fields, practicing tee-ball, baseball, softball and soccer.

I’m not someone who likes sports. I was always the last one chosen for the team. Not even love could save me – my high school boyfriend didn’t pick me for his team when he was the coach. His reasoning was sound – I was the worst one.

In college, the only way I passed a tennis class was because I made 100 on the written test. I was the only person in the entire class who never won a point. You read that right – I never earned one point, much less won a match.

So it’s a little odd that I love sports, especially spring sports like baseball and softball. Because I’m the mom of boys who enjoyed sports, we were at the baseball field a good bit of the time during their growing up years.

It was a stretch at first, learning the game, not getting upset at other parents and especially watching my sons strike out, miss a foul ball or not make the throw from the outfield to the infield.

It’s the process that’s fulfilling in sports. Watching your child go from swinging and missing at a baseball to finally connecting is a thrill for the child and for the parent.

Seeing them learn the difference between offense and defense on the basketball court was like watching them learn the difference between salt and sugar.

We watched our boys work, and it was like manna from heaven to see that hard work pay off. But there were the darker moments – the missed tackle, an unfair coach, a surprise foul.

There were the injuries as well. Our middle son broke his collarbone when a kid slid into him while he was protecting second base.

There’s the burn out – school plus homework plus practice is tough for a young person to juggle. When they don’t get picked for the team, that’s a difficult conversation to have on the way home from tryouts.

Teaching them to roll with the punches, to try harder the next time and to shake it off is all part of being the parent of a young athlete.

We’ve had our share of bad coaches – men and women who were only wearing a cap because they wanted their son to be the pitcher or they wanted their daughter to be the goalie.

In all our years of being bleacher parents, only one young player made it to the minor leagues.

I wish these coaches had realized the real lessons were instilling a sense of teamwork and the realization that practice is vital for success.

Our boys have had some extraordinary coaches who taught the basics – how to catch and throw a ball and guard an opponent. More importantly, they taught them how to win and how to lose. To this day, I’m grateful for their guidance and support.

Our young grandson had such a soccer coach last year. He saw a spark in Jason and encouraged, praised, corrected and liked our grandson.

We have a picture of Coach Josh and Jason on display. Whenever I see that photo, I think about all the men and women who’ll step up this year and, without realizing it, will be the brightest spot in that child’s life for many years.

Load up the lawn chairs and the Gatorade.

It’s go time.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

 

With Easter this coming weekend, my mom asked if I remembered the Easter egg hunts we had growing up.

I vaguely recall looking for eggs in the big yard next to my grandparents’ house. Mostly I remember dressing up for Easter Mass with a new hat, gloves and shiny white patent leather shoes.

The Easters I remember the most, I told her, are the ones when our children, her grandchildren, were young. Those I remember like they were yesterday.

On the Saturday before Easter Sunday, we’d sit around the bar in my parents’ house and let the kids dye eggs. At least half ended up on the floor because those excited little hands couldn’t quite hold on to a hard-boiled egg.

Before the hunt began, the uncles would hide the eggs while we’d hold the youngsters inside. It was an unspoken rule – the ones on the patio, the ones in plain sight, were for the youngest cousins.

Then, the kids would line up on the steps by the back door, and when an uncle gave the word, off they’d go.

Some of the children would find an egg, stop, sit down and peel it right there. Forget about looking for more eggs. Their philosophy was I got something solid here – why waste time chasing after things I can’t see?

The older ones always helped the younger ones, and we still talk about their generosity and kindness.

There was a limit as to how many they could find so the hunt would be fair. The kids always accepted that rule without question. Well, with little questioning.

The afternoon ended with the egg cracking contest. Although I can’t remember who won those contests, I remember the older ones trying every strategy to win – holding the egg so just a little bit showed, spinning the egg to see which end had air and would be vulnerable.

Finally, we’d clean up, pack up and head home, ready for another week of work and school. We’d reminisce every year about the year before, retell the stories and add a few more.

Over the years, some of us moved out of state so we created our own Easter memories and traditions. For us, Saturday evening was for dyeing the eggs, and Sunday morning for combing through our baskets to see what the Easter Bunny brought before heading to church.

Sunday afternoon was for hunting eggs and silently wishing we were back at Mom and Dad’s to be with everyone.

I didn’t realize those fun everybody-together moments would become precious memories. I took for granted the Hebert siblings, cousins, nieces, nephews, spouses and friends would spend holidays together.

Those times together have become gold in my memory because we were gathered as a family. Didn’t matter about the spilled Kool-Aid, the stacks of dirty dishes, nor the dozens of toys scattered all over my mom’s living room floor.

Those hectic days are what I remember when my house is quiet. I replay watching my brothers play basketball in our parents’ driveway, slowly evolving into watching our nephews and nieces shoot hoops.

The same kids who once looked for Easter eggs are now hiding eggs in their back yards for their children or enjoying their own Easter traditions as a couple.

As we all make new memories, I’ll be remembering Easter egg hunts at the Hebert household, a holiday together we didn’t think was all that special.

At the time, it was simply a Sunday afternoon. Now, those moments are precious gold.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

One morning, my Yahoo Mail wouldn’t load.

Instead, an odd error message flashed on the screen. I did some digging and found an 800 phone number that was supposed to be the Yahoo help desk.

Turned out to be a company trying to get money out of me, but the Yahoo account acted up for a couple of days. I worried my computer had been compromised because of the odd message. My neighbor, Arthur, is a computer whiz, and he offered to check out the system.

By the end of the day, he said the computer was fine but I should change from Yahoo mail to Gmail. My husband had been telling me to switch over for months, but like so many people, I didn’t want to give up the familiar.

Changing what’s comfortable isn’t easy.

I’m comfortable with the familiar.

Checking my email with Yahoo is familiar. There’s a shortcut on my desktop and I can get right to my email in seconds.

The books on the bookshelf are in the same order as when I put them there 10 years ago. I know where they are – why change that up?

The pictures I hung on the family room wall 12 years ago are still in the same place.

My computer sits on the same desk it has for the past 20 years. My son keeps telling me to get a more efficient set up, but that requires one word I try and avoid – change.

My hairstyle is familiar. When Rosie, my friend and stylist, was out for a few weeks, a different stylist cut my hair.

That was a disaster – I couldn’t style my hair the way she had, the cut was too short and the style required using a hair brush in ways I knew I’d never master.

Uncle Ben’s long-grain rice is the only brand I use because my grandmother and my mom used it. I see no reason to change what’s worked for two generations.

I’m not always such a stick in the mud. I change my attitudes and opinions when presented with new information. Being able to check information from a variety of sources is a challenge I enjoy.

But it looked like I was going to have to move out of my comfort zone and do something different with my email.

I grudgingly took my husband’s and Arthur’s advice. I went through all the steps to set up a Gmail account. Trying to hang on to something familiar, I tried using the same email name as I’d been using for the past 20 years.

No go.

Someone had already chosen that name. The names Gmail suggested were too long and, let’s face it, I’d never remember those. After 10 minutes, I finally typed a password Google found satisfactory.

Then there was the next step of setting up a password. I’m awful with passwords. Super secure ones are too long for me to remember and require upper case, lower case, symbols and numbers.

But after 15 minutes, I submitted a password Google found safe and acceptable. I wrote it down and haven’t told Arthur or my husband I committed that email faux pas. I know I’m prone to forgetting passwords, so I followed a familiar routine, hence the reason the password is written down in a book.

When I finished setting up the Gmail account, my husband asked if I wanted a tutorial on storing documents in the cloud and using One-Drive.

Overload, was the word that flashed in my brain.

Until I get an error message or I’m forced, I’ll follow my familiar routine of saving things to an external hard drive and the desktop.

My brain’s tired. I think I’ll pop a tape in the VHS recorder and relax.

 

Denise’s email is dhadams1955@yahoo.com. Yes, I’ll still check it. Old habits die hard. This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

 

Many scientists believe strong nuclear force is the most powerful force in the universe. Others believe gravity is the most potent while some would put hurricanes and avalanches at the top of the powerful category.

Albert Einstein said that compound interest is the most powerful force. If you started saving money at an early age and cash it in after you retire, you’ll believe the genius was correct.

The romantics among us believe love is the strongest emotion while the pessimists would argue that hate is powerful and dangerous.

These are sound theories. However, there’s something more powerful than keeping planets in line or making sure the sun stays millions of miles away.

I believe guilt is the most powerful force in the world. Guilt can make the strongest person cave under pressure. When used effectively, guilt can make us into better people.

Guilt was one of the strongest tools I had as a parent. If one of the boys hit the other, I had the standard reply.

“You hit your brother,” I’d say to the guilty party as the innocent one cried loudly and without taking a breath. I’d shake my head in disappointment while consoling the wailing child. I’d look straight in the eyes of the offender and ratchet up the guilt.

“Look how bad he feels. Now tell him you’re sorry,” I’d say.

Usually that philosophy worked. That is until the day the hitter said they didn’t feel bad about hitting their brother.

“He deserved it,” was the answer. Out went that line of guilt shaming because guilt only works if you feel bad about what you did.

When they were older, instilling guilt became a little more sophisticated. But I had the guilt grand master close by – my grandmother. She’d cook a huge meal, fill a plate to overflowing and then put it down in front of me. She’d sit next to me, point at the plate and smile.

“Looks good, doesn’t it,” she’d say. “I made all of this for you.”

The food looked delicious, but she and I both knew there was no way I could eat everything she’d heaped on the plate.

“I can’t eat all of this,” I’d say, trying to weasel out of all that food. She’d dab at her eyes.

“You don’t like what I fixed you,” she’d say. I’d reassure her I did and then she’d look at the plate and at me. I’d end up eating everything on there, just so she wouldn’t feel bad.

My mom updated the guilt about food with a line we knew was coming if we turned our noses up at what she’d fixed.

“There are starving children in China who’d be glad to eat this,” she’d say. That worked until my brother talked back one night.

“Well, then, they can have this,” he said. Let’s just say he was one of those starving children because he went to bed without any supper that night.

I tried to soften the guilt for my boys, but I’d been trained by the very best. I’d find myself mouthing words I couldn’t believe were coming out of my mouth, but there they were.

“I slaved for hours in front of that stove and you tell me you ate a taco over at your friend’s house so now you’re not hungry!” was one of my lines. “Fine, then, I’ll just throw it away.”

I never could throw away perfectly good food, so I’d just put it in the fridge for lunch the next day. Still, I never could tell them that – the guilt was so much more fun to dish out.

The romantic in me believes that love is the strongest force and will always win out over hate. Gravity keeps the universe in check and Mother Nature is savagely powerful.

But as a person who’s dished out guilt as well as crumbled underneath it, guilt is the ace of hearts in the deck of life.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

Social media is having a field day with comedian Chris Rock’s Netflix special “Selective Outrage.”

Every review I’ve read about the hour-long show has zeroed in on the last eight minutes. That’s when Rock addressed the big incident – Will Smith came up on the stage at the Academy Awards and slapped him.

Netflix viewers came to hear what Rock would say about Will Smith. They wanted blood. They wanted vengeance.

But I tuned in because I’ve seen most of Chris Rock’s stand-up specials, and they were raunchy but funny.

As the special progressed, I stopped wondering about “the slap” and was, instead, intrigued by a couple of stories Rock told.

One was when Rock’s daughter, Lola, snuck out on a high school field trip, went to a bar and got drunk with some White friends.

The school threatened to expel them. The parents banded together and said they were going to get lawyers and sue the school for not supervising their daughters.

Then Rock overheard his daughter and her friends laughing about the incident and how they’d all get out of it. Without telling her or his daughter’s mother, Rock drove to the school, found the dean and told him to expel his daughter.

The dean complied. Rock said his daughter had to write letters and essays to other high schools to find admittance.

She did it.

When it was time to apply for college, she had to write more essays and took responsibility for her actions. She wrote those as well.

Today, she’s in culinary school in Paris doing extremely well.

But that story wasn’t in any review I read. Nor was the story he told about his mother having to go to a vet for dental work when she was a child because White dentists wouldn’t treat Black children.

I thought a lot about those two stories and why the media didn’t at least mention the incidents about the women in his family. For me, those were powerful stories, ones worth hearing and understanding.

But people didn’t tune in to hear Chris Rock talk about parenting or prejudice. They wanted to hear how he was going to get even with Will Smith.

Sensationalism is what gets people to click on articles which generates income. Take a look at the headlines on your news feed. There are certain phrases webmasters consistently use to get you to click on their story – “tragic mistake,” “baffled viewers” and “shoppers swear by this” are a few of the most common ones I see.

Probably a headline promoting how to handle the hard things in parenting wouldn’t generate the same clicks as “A serial murderer lived on my street and I can’t stop thinking about it.”

We’re being led down the path savvy marketers and artificial intelligence wants us to travel. They wanted us to watch the Chris Rock special to find out how he felt about Will Smith. They completely bypassed the first 50 minutes of the special to get to the “juicy” salacious, gossipy part.

And even then, they thought Rock was too easy on Smith or he deserved to get slapped. Our society has gotten quite good at negativity, criticism and sinking to the lowest common denominator.

I wouldn’t put Chris Rock down as a parenting expert. But I would put him down as someone who watched his mother overcome prejudice and poverty.

I’d also say he made some tough decisions to ensure his daughter grew up taking responsibility for her decisions.

Too bad he only gets credit for the “big slap” at the Oscars.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

When I was a young girl, I thought staying up all night long was the ultimate grown-up privilege.

As a teen, I routinely went to bed at one or two in the morning. At the time, it seemed like I’d be missing something if I didn’t stay up.

As a grown up, I know the answer – what I missed was sleep.

The years after the age of 50 are supposed to be the “golden years.” Ads in magazines picture laughing silver-haired couples skiing, drinking wine in a beautiful location or relaxing in an tropical paradise.

Reality is a little bit different.

For many, the golden years are spent in doctors’ offices, trying to figure out why the aches and pains we shrugged off for decades now affect our daily living.

No more eating burgers and fries without a care in the world. We know about bifocals, dentures, walkers, grip bars in the shower and how to navigate the unbelievably complicated Medicaid system.

Many people are able to do all the activities they did when they were in their 30’s, and their activity level is right up there with the young ‘uns.

They hike, go mountain climbing, and ride motorcycles without a care in the world. I marvel at pictures of people my age who are still canoeing down treacherous rivers while so many of us are cautious to a fault.

Even for those who are reluctant to go zip lining, there’s quite a few benefits for those on the other side of 50 and we don’t have to take karate classes to live it up.

First, we don’t care about what other people think.

Let’s start with our hair. Want to go all grey? No problem. We’ve made the color gray sound exotic. It’s platinum, silver or white.

Want to wear black socks with sandals? Go ahead. Nobody cares and nobody’s looking. In fact, if you want to wear support hose with shorts and sneakers, go right ahead. At our age, we’ve learned that comfort and practicality is what counts.

Want to play music loud? Go right ahead. Crank Neil Diamond and Paul McCartney up and sing along. Those guys are cool and retro now, so you’ll fit right in with the younger crowd.

We’ve mastered the best way to handle the whiners and complainers. When I was younger, I’d gripe to my friends about what this one had done to me or that one had said.

Not anymore.

I don’t care if they like me or don’t like me.

They want to whine and complain? I’m sorry they don’t have any other way to cope with life other than to gossip or talk about people behind their backs. I thank the heavens I’m not that negative or petty.

Don’t feel like cooking? Not a problem. The kids are grown, and Door Dash or Grub Hub bring us what we want to eat without our having to leave the recliner in the living room. Best of all, most of us are perfectly content with leftovers.

Despite the things my knees refuse to do these days, life is great. I can sing, think, dream, laugh, cry and celebrate. I can get where I want to go, whether it’s walking or driving.

I’ll never read “War and Peace,” I won’t learn how to macrame, nor will I attempt bungee jumping. I read what I want to read, attempt new arts and crafts if they look like fun and refuse to try and prove anything to anybody.

These are the golden years. There’s a little bit of tarnish in some spots, but all in all, life is good.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

I asked my 15-yr-old granddaughter what made somebody a social influencer. She said these are people who have the means to affect the way others think, dress and act. They use social media – mostly TikTok and Instagram – as their platform.

“What do they influence them to do?” I asked.

“Everything,” she said. “Cooking, dancing, what to wear, or just hanging out with friends.”

I looked up a few of the most popular ones. Most promote themselves, but a few create videos about ways to live. Some were as useful as cotton candy while others had a bit of solid advice about living.

Folks, our generation and the ones before us, were robbed.

Most of us have family members who would’ve been famous if only we’d had a cell phone to capture their advice.

Growing up, our house was filled with noise and seven children with distinct personalities. We had enough adventures to fill hours of video – how to embrace being the middle child, where to hide money from siblings and how to survive an eccentric father.

My Aunt Bev and Uncle Jim were house flippers decades before Chip and Joanna Gaines. They didn’t pass a house being demolished that they didn’t come away with loads of items my aunt repurposed. They did so as a team and with lots of laughter.

The advice they could’ve filmed covered a variety of topics. Some could’ve been how to find valuable antiques in an off-the-beaten-path shop and others about how to rewire a house. They could’ve made a fortune.

My uncles could’ve entertained every outdoorsperson in the world with their fishing and hunting videos. The adventure they had looking for Jean Lafitte’s buried treasure would’ve gone viral overnight.

My cousin, Sylvia, is nine months older than me and had a fresh outlook on life as a teenager. She calmly and quietly worked for social change and always sought the good in people.

Sylvia is still the calmest person I know and lives the words she told us so many years ago – love unconditionally, embrace life and never miss a chance to celebrate. If she’d had a platform, she would’ve had a million followers.

Most moms back in the day could’ve easily hosted a YouTube channel. One fashion video would be entitled “you’re not going to wear that, are you?” The follow-up would be what to wear to a wedding, a funeral, a dance – all the places where we wonder what the words “casual chic” mean.

My mom loved telling me “All the kids are wearing this.” She’d be holding up something hideous.  Maybe if she’d had a platform, thousands would’ve thought her fashion choices were perfect and Mom would’ve been right – all the kids would’ve been wearing that.

If I would’ve had a cell phone and a platform years ago, I could’ve influenced mothers of boys. My parenting videos could include “this is what I found under my son’s bed this morning” and “let’s see how many orphaned socks we find in the couch cushions today.”

Other topics could’ve been prizes for contests boys love to compete in – who can belch the most times in a row and the number of times they can wear the same pair of socks without washing them.

I could’ve given advice to working moms on how to trick your child into believing the store-bought cupcakes you took up to his classroom were really home-made. Or how to get the Tooth Fairy off the hook when she forgets to put a few dollars under your child’s pillow.

Social influencers aren’t anything new. Their audience has simply gotten bigger. I’d pit aunts, uncles and parents with a sense of humor against any of these 20 somethings any day of the week.

Then we’d see who’d be living on Easy Street.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.             

Natalie was in a hurry. She was moving in two days, and she still had to pack up her belongings. That was too big a word for what she owned – stacks of worn romance paperbacks, a glass jar filled with small rocks she’d picked up on beaches over the years and T-shirts from every rock-and-roll concert she’d attended from the time she had a mouth full of braces and cheeks dotted with acne.

Natalie found someone in the grocery store wearing a red shirt and tapped him on the shoulder. The young man was wearing ear buds, oblivious to the sounds around him.

“Excuse me, do you have any extra boxes?” she asked him. He nodded and told her to check in the back through the folded doors by the milk cooler. “Just go on in. Nobody cares if you take boxes.”

Natalie pulled her backpack tighter and headed to the back of the store. She pushed through the double doors and saw boxes in a big container. Some had already been flattened while others were ripped or torn. Natalie started going through the boxes. She pushed the big boxes to the side. No way she’d be able to lift those once they were filled.

The perfect boxes, she decided, were the “Goldilocks boxes” – not too big, not too small. Natalie flattened all but one box and put the flattened ones in that box. She maneuvered out of the grocery store, careful not to knock over the cardboard display of Hostess Twinkies and not just because she didn’t want to pick them up. Those Hostess treats were irresistible and late-night snacking was just one of her many escape-from-reality tricks these days.

She got the boxes in the back seat of her Camry and then safely up the stairs to her apartment door. Natalie fished the house keys out of her backpack and let herself into the apartment. It was quiet. For the past year, she’d come home to the sound of her boyfriend, Josh, playing video games or Creedence Clearwater Revival playing almost full blast.

“Babe, there’s just no comparison,” Josh would say, pushing another Dorito in his mouth. “Just try and find a better song than ‘Fortunate Son.’ Did you know that’s an anti-war song?”

Of course she knew “Fortunate Son” was a rally against the Viet Nam war. She wondered if Josh knew anything about the politics of the 1960s. She sure did. Natalie’s father was an expert on the Viet Nam conflict, as he called it, and that conversation was a frequent topic at Sunday dinners. Some days she wanted to ask Josh if he knew the names Malcolm X, Medgar Evers or he’d ever read the writings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

But who was she kidding? Both she and Josh had put each other in boxes months earlier. She was the sentimental person in the relationship – she kept movie stubs, ripped-in-half concert tickets and those T-shirts. Once Josh made her a bet – if she could show him a shirt from The Bangles or The Go-Gos, he’d clean the bathroom for six months. That was a bet she won fair and square. Josh was a dreamer but not about relationships or his purpose in life. He was determined to perfect a recipe for bathtub beer and learning how to count cards to win at blackjack in New Orleans. Las Vegas, he’d proclaim, was too jaded.

But now, the apartment was quiet, deathly quiet, and she had a job in front of her. The night she and Josh fought to the point where both were screaming and crying and then drained, Natalie knew their relationship was finished. They called it quits. Natalie said she’d stay in the apartment since she had a steady income as a public school teacher. Josh was an unemployed software developer. He said he was going to move back in with his parents and could be out in two weeks. At the time, Natalie was so angry, she told Josh he had until the end of the week to leave.

“Fine,” he’d told her. “I can make it even faster than that.”

For once, Josh was good to his word. The next day, when Natalie was teaching second graders, Josh recruited a couple of friends and cleaned everything he owned out of the apartment. Natalie came home to a garbage bag filled with trash outside the front door, a closet with empty hangers and the apartment key on the kitchen counter.

“He even took the extra toilet paper out of the cabinet,” Natalie told her co-teacher the next day.

Now it was her turn to pack. She decided she needed to find a one-bedroom place closer to school. It didn’t take her long to find a suitable apartment exactly where she needed it to be located. In a matter of hours, she’d signed sign a new lease. Natalie knew she’d learn to appreciate a place that was cheaper and didn’t have the wandering ghosts of Natalie and Josh haunting the rooms. But she’d dragged her feet leaving their apartment. Maybe she was hoping she and Josh could patch things up. Maybe, she told herself after finishing a carton of ice cream, she’d seen too many Disney movies.

But her back was up against the wall. The lease on this place was up in two days, and she’d put off packing long enough. It was time, as her mother would say, to roll up her sleeves and get crackin’.

Natalie dropped the boxes on the carpet and took off her jacket. She looked around and saw quite a few things Josh had overlooked.

“Guess he was in a hurry to get away from me,” she thought bitterly. She considered having a bonfire with the things he’d left behind, but that wasn’t her style. She’d figure out what to do with those odds and ends later.

Natalie rummaged around in the box pile and opened up one of the medium-sized boxes, taping the bottom shut. She started taking paperbacks off the bookshelf. There were at least a dozen books by Stephen King – she’d never own a St. Bernard, that was for sure – and a few romance paperbacks. When Josh saw those, he opened one up and started reading aloud.

“Horatio’s full lips met Darcy’s and the passion was instantaneous…” he began, and Natalie lunged across the couch and ripped the book from his hands, both of them laughing.

“Hey, a girl needs a little romance from time to time,” she’d told him. He’d leaned over and kissed her deeply and told her she wouldn’t need those books now that she was living with him.

When she put the romance books in the box, Darcy sarcastically thought not only did she need those books for the romance that was missing in her life, but she should’ve told him to take some as an instruction manual for how to handle a woman.

When the box was full, she closed the top – over, over, over, under, her father had taught her, and wrote “books” on top of the box. Funny how one brown rectangular object could hold so many memories, she thought. She pushed those thoughts aside and kept packing until she’d cleared the bookshelves.

She told herself not to think about what she was doing – just keep packing. After Natalie taped the bottom of one of the bigger boxes and flipped it over, that’s when she noticed what was stamped on the side of the box from the grocery store. It had contained Kleenex. And that’s when the tears hit Natalie. She hadn’t cried since she and Josh decided it was over. She hadn’t shed a tear when she came home and saw his apartment key on the counter. She’d remained dry eyed when she got a letter in the mail addressed to him. The tears didn’t start until she looked at that empty box that had contained Kleenex – a vital part of anyone’s break-up journey – and realized with a hard smack that Josh was gone. Really gone.

Without thinking, Natalie plopped down in the middle of the living room, put the empty Kleenex box over her head and cried hard tears, her body shaking from the sobbing. Finally, she stopped and took the box off her head and filled it with everything Josh had left in the apartment. He’d never notice she’d used the Kleenex box, but for once, Natalie didn’t care that the man she supposedly loved was as shallow as water in a small ditch. She would always know that was the last box of tissues she’d need where Josh was concerned.

And that made her feel like a fortunate son.