So far, Dinner with the Smileys has been about us and what we are going through while Dustin is away on deployment. My boys have met interesting people who have given them unforgettable experiences and thoughtful gifts. My boys are forever changed because of it.
After the mayor’s surprise limo and trip to get ice cream, Ford wanted to know why everyone is being so nice to us. I explained to him that it feels good to do things for others and that “treating” the boys is for our guests a treat in itself.
Ford decided it would be nice to do the same thing for someone else.
For our fifth Dinner with the Smileys, I asked my friend Jenifer Lloyd to show the boys what philanthropy is all about. Jenifer is a seven-year breast cancer survivor. She works for Champion the Cure Challenge. She knows a thing or two about giving back all that has been given to you.
Jenifer planned to take Ford, Owen and Lindell to the pediatric floor of Eastern Maine Medical Center, where they could meet children who have cancer and other life-threatening illnesses.
A trip like this, of course, requires some planning … and lots of warning. In the days leading up to our dinner, I talked to the boys about what they might see and how they should behave. I told them they might have questions, and if they did, either Jenifer or the nurses could help them understand.
The boys were attentive and curious. They also were a little nervous. We decided to buy small gifts for the patients. Doing so helped the boys put themselves in the other children’s shoes: What would I want if I was in the hospital? Older kids, Ford decided, would want crossword puzzles. Younger kids, Lindell said, would want coloring books.
I reminded the boys that our dinner guests had done the same thoughtful planning and questioning before they came to our house.
We met Jenifer at EMMC and rode the elevator to the eighth floor. When the doors parted, the boys saw a lighthouse and a mural of fish on the walls. This was not the “hospital” they had imagined.
They hadn’t seen anything yet.
Inside the double swinging doors and down the hallway past the patient rooms was an atrium filled toys, a foosball table, books, sofas and tables with umbrellas bathed in natural sunlight from the glass ceiling.
The boys were confused. Their faces said, “So when do we get to the hospital?” And in truth, I’m not sure Lindell, who is only 5, ever really understood that we were inside a hospital. Hospitals have come a long way from the time when the only comfort for children was an old television that played reruns of shows like Wheel of Fortune.
Amid such a child-friendly environment, my boys eased back into kid mode. Lindell rode on a stuffed dinosaur. Ford and Owen checked out the foosball table. There was laughter and noise.
Then a boy shuffled past in a hospital gown. He was close in age to my older boys and like them in almost all respects. Except he was carrying a bag for his catheter.
Now the boys remembered.
They made crafts with the boy in the family resource room. Then he offered to help them pass out gifts to the other patients, some of whom we could not meet because of the nature of their illnesses.
After the hospital, it was time to have a meal with our dinner guest. Jenifer arranged a table at the Black Bear Inn in Orono, where downtown’s Montes operates a small cafe. The boys let out some of their pent-up energy by running to the newly renovated restroom to see the fountain heads (literally) that spit out water. While they were away, Jenifer asked if she could share her cancer story with them.
I wasn’t sure how much the boys would understand. Do they even know what breasts are? But when Jenifer showed them pictures of herself being wheeled into surgery, they “got it.” The table was quiet for a couple minutes while Jenifer fiddled with her smartphone. She pulled up another picture, this one of her bald head and her naturally bald husband wearing a wig meant for her. The boys looked at me as if for permission to laugh. Jenifer beat them to it. When she laughed, they did, too.
It’s hard to know how much the boys absorbed from the day, but they have been unusually quiet ever since. Did I show them too much? Did any of it make sense? I’ll probably never know.
Yet, as we left the cafe that night, Jenifer gave each of the boys a gift from herself and the Inn. It was a stuffed bear. My older boys are past the age of stuffed animals, so I worried they might make a face. I held my breath.
Then Owen read the card tied to the bear’s neck. All the proceeds from the stuffed animal go to Cancer Care of Maine. No one said a word. The boys stared at their bears. And my heart was glad because although everyone got a gift, I saw what the boys had come to know: It wasn’t about them.
Maine author and columnist Sarah Smiley’s writing is syndicated weekly to publications across the country. She and her husband, Dustin, live with their three sons in Bangor. She may be reached at sarah@sarahsmiley.com.
Really enjoy reading your column every week, this one is no exception. Thanks for sharing with us
sarah………..another smile. It’s obvious you’re a great mom, exposing your boys to all the things that you can. Applause :) Enjoy them while you can. The Kleenex-riddled car ride to college is a killer.
Great job, Sarah!
Thank you for the smile … and a tear.
All right, a column not whining or glorifying in some way the US military, which is invading other people’s homes and killing them around the world. This one was a good one, the first one of hers I’ve read beyond the first sentence.
Let’s have more about regular people – not Oh, dear, how hard it is to be a military wife. Remember all the privileges and welfare benefits military people get and relate to all the rest of the people paying for them, and to the people being killed by US military as they sit on other countries’ soil in about 1,000 US military bases around the world that we, the American people, are paying for.
Want to be rah, rah about US military? Okay, but remember the kids gets up to $50,000 to sign up (yes, check with local recruiter if you don’t believe this) and many benefits from then on. Talk about socialism? There you go.
Your comments are uncalled for, Grow up!
My comments are absolutely called for. Unthinking acceptance of the lies we’re told so we’ll accept US military incursions into other countries and their people needs to be called out by serious citizens who value our way of life and out countries’ security.
The US military (or, rather, the Pentagon generals and the military-0il-industrial complex President Eisenhower warned us about) who need to justify their existence is, at this time, a plague on the earth.
See General Smedley Butler’s book – google “War is a Racket” to find out what it’s all about. He was the most heavily decorated Marine and wrote this from his experience. Millions have read it and know it to be true, including many, many who have been to war and in the killing of other countries’ civilians – women and children, as keeps happening these days – and they, too, decry our invasions of other sovereign countries.
“Growing Up” requires being able to look at the world realistically – to read a lot and actually know what one is talking about with facts, not imagined “patriotism” by accepting what the generals and their backers – the oil and coal companies who want to steal other countries’ natural resources – want us to believe.
Think for yourself – read widely – I suggest http://www.commondreams.org as a starting point for your daily news, in addition to what you probably usually watch and believe,, that is, Limbaugh and Fox “news.”.
Why run down this young women and her family? She is trying to get by the best way she can. This not about, war or any other thing. Sarah Smiley, is not the cause or the reason for the wars. Her husband is doing his job. That’s the long and the short of it. I would never watch Fox New, Rupert Murdock, is a good apart of what is wrong in the country. As for Limbaugh, any one the would wish for a President to fail, also wishes for a country to fail. I’m a proud Democrat, Who has been told, that I’m unpatriotic more then once, because, I believe, that a strong mind can, can rule the world better, then a strong fist. I’m a proud Blue Star mother, who’s son has been in harm way, 4 times. I have also been told that because I’m a Democrat, if my son should die in service, that his death would be for in vain. So you see, you don’t know who I am any more than I know you, but I do know this Sarah Smiley is just doing the best she can, with what life has given her. She’s trying to do what good moms do, make life easier for her babies while their daddy is away. I for one don’t like you bullying her.
As Smiley’s column deals mostly with military life, and since she’s a public figure putting her opinions forth in the BDN, it is certainly permissible and logical to assume one can question her primary topic with impunity.
If I wrote a column, I’d expect to be criticized by some who didn’t agree with my premises. That’s the point of a comment discussion section.
I used to glance through her columns and saw – at least early on, after which I haven’t read them except to glance at first sentence – complaining about this and that, and how difficult life is for military wives, etc.
With all the perks and welfare paid for by us, military people should not complain when others are losing their jobs and then their homes, making their families homeless and in extreme poverty. I simply cannot sympathize with military families when they are doing quite well at our expense compared to millions of others.
Soldiers’ job is to kill people; that’s what they’re trained to do. That is their function. I do not approve of that job when it’s not in our defense, but is used to invade and kill people in other countries. That is simply wrong.
I do wish all the people who call themselves Christian would actually follow Christ’s teachings………..as well as the Ten Commandmants.
I wonder what part of “Thou Shalt Not Kill” isn’t clear to them.
You sound a little nuts, but I agree with some of what you’re saying…you should tone it down a bit and focus a lot – your issues seem to be freedom of the press, opposition to the war, concern about federal expenditures on the military, concern that the military orientation of our nation is not helpful, the possibility that some soldiers are whiners or freeloaders (or at least their spouses), anger about poverty, opposition to killing, concern about the Bush doctrine, ethics and concern about the collapse of the Christian value system. That seems like a bit much to address in a single post, doesn’t it?
No, it’s not too much. I don’t have a weekly column to express my opinions – and you understood what I was saying so………….thanks for understanding.
I may be a tad awry, but if one isn’t these days, one simply doesn’t know what’s going on, or doesn’t care. From what I’ve seen of your posts, you do care.
Cleanearth, could you write an article versus ranting and raving here? I seriously doubt it. Well, perhaps but not one that would be read by anyone except on your commondream.org page. Did you possibly stop and think that Sarah writes from her experience which happens to include a military family. I doubt you could possibly understand the underlying themse of what she writes about in every story. Hint–it is not about being a military family.
When it involves a voluntary army, military service is not a sacrifice, it’s a career choice. You are right about that. That being said, I like that this woman is using her husbands decision to be overseas to spotlight different issues and educate her kids – that’s kind of cool. I have no idea why anyone with small kids would volunteer for a job that pulls them away from their young kids, but she’s making the best of it.
Atleast her husband is serving in a safe area and will be home soon—not like he is in Afghanistan or Iraq at a FOB. Talk about great privileges and WELFARE benefits you claim you pay for–bet those places have 5 star accomodations you think WE get. Oh yeah never got a reenlistment bonus and served over 24 years. Let me know your address and I will return my WELFARE check.
Before you call anything socialism, I highly suggest you understand what it means. And if you don’t like the military and what they do for us then I suggest you move to a country that does not have a military–I doubt there is such a thing but heck, go ahead and look in your fantasy world. You might just find such a country with unicorns. Quit bashing something you know nothing about. Remember, this military defends the right for you to be the fool you are–be glad.
Don’t many people define “socialism” (although there are many different versions of what that is) as government taking care of things?
Name-calling is very kindergarten. Let’s stick to issues.
How do you define “socialism?” That’s today’s scare word. Yesterday it was “communism.”
I suggest you read the First Amendment to the Constitution on Freedom of Speech. It isn’t only free for people you agree with – – you either believe in Free Speech for all, especially those you disagree with, or you don’t believe in it at all.
I don’t think you actually read my post where I said we need our military for our defense, but not for invading other soverign countries.
All the current wars are so big corporations can move in – as they have in Iraq – and steal those countries’ oil and water.
These invasions are not to protect us; no one is threatening to invade us.
The American military is larger than everyone else’s combined, which is a huge waste of our resources.
I know it’s the “thing” to do Rah Rah for American military, but it’s being misused by the moneymen. We taxpayers are paying for over 1,000 military bases around the world to protect corporate property and steal local resources.
Sarah, thanks for sharing, your story it made me cry.
I always enjoy reading your articles whether about military life or life with boys or anything in between. Please keep up the good work!
Sarah, again a well written article on the human spirit! To learn empathy at such a young age is difficult but a necessary lesson that many in today’s society never did. Keep sharing your stories with us!