Almost Lost (23 page)

Sammy summed it up. “I always thought you guys were the strong, no problems, no-pain people, and I was the weak, whoopsy, screwup. Now…wow! I know we're all held together by…” He threw up his hands in wonder.

Paula reached over and squeezed his knee. “By each other.”

One by one they started sharing intimate loving stories about family conflicts and noncommunications: the time the family had left Dorie at church, the time Sammy had taken old Mrs. Markum's fancy birthday cake to Mrs. Miller, the time Dana had gone to the swimming meet on Friday instead of Saturday.

I finally interrupted. “Why don't you save those for the Family Home Nights you said you were going to start having. For now, let me ask if you think we can be deceived about what we
think
we
see
as well as by what we think we hear?”

Dorie laughed. “No. No way! Words can make things seem different, but when you see something, you really see it.”

“Let me show you some pictures to discover if you sometimes see things differently from a different angle as well as hear things differently.”

Are you being sucked
down
into darkness and pain? Are you flowing away from darkness?

Is
your
circle-self imprisoned inside your box or free on the outside?

The three girls are all the same size. Measure them. Do you sometimes shrink your self-image?

Are you looking
down
at life?
Are you looking
through
life?
Are you looking
up
at life?

Which way is the bird flying? Have you ever tried to fly both ways at once?

Can you get anywhere if you're flying in circles?

Are you sometimes so busy seeing
things
that you don't see
people?

Do you see a couple? A vase? Both?

Are you looking at your book of life with its awesome pages turned away from you?

Are you sitting tensely in a dark corner of your dark little room looking at another dark corner of your room?

 

D
ANA
: “I've really learned some amazing things.”

S
AMMY
: “Me, too. Maybe I'll look at, and listen to, things a little differently now.”

D
ORIE
: “I think I'll listen more carefully, and I'll care more.”

D
ANA
: “I think I'll
feel
more.”

D
R.
B: “How do you kids
feel
about making appointments to communicate with your parents like you communicate with me?”

D
ANA
: “I can't wait.”

D
ORIE
: “I think it will be cool. Just
me
getting all the attention. Having Mom or Dad alone to really listen to me instead of brushing me off because I'm the littlest kid.”

 

“Do any of you have any other things you need or would like to discuss?”

When no one answered, Lance said, “I'd like for you to introduce us to the TOXICITY OF NEGATIVITY.”

Dorie made a weird face and looked up at him. “The…I don't even know what that means.”

I reached into a drawer, pulled out a candy kiss, and tossed it to her. “Oh, yes, you do. The TOXICITY OF NEGATIVITY is just a series of fancy words for simple, humble little truisms that control our lives. You get the prize for
daring
to say something about the show-offishness of the title. Maybe we should find a new one.”

Dorie giggled. “No. Let's not. Sometimes it's fun to try and keep your tongue from stumbling when
it's trying to get around words like Tosk sicks…tox ticks…tox sig-a-ne…”

“Better stop while you've got the candy, kid,” Sammy warned. “But going back to prizes, how come I didn't get one or two or three kisses when…I was ‘daring'?”

I pulled out the package. “I think we all deserve five or ten. The papers will make good visual aids for our Toco…tocso…TOXICITY OF NEGATIVITY Game. Okay, how many of you know that being negative—thinking negative things, saying negative things, or doing negative things—can be literally poisonous? Toxic and poisonous mean the same thing.”

Sammy raised his hand and waved it wildly. “I do, I do, I do, I do!”

“Can negativity be contagious?”

Dorie beamed. “I know! I know! Yes, it can. If someone says something bad to you, you want to say something worse back to them.”

Dana chimed in. “And if someone comes home from work kind of crabby, it makes you feel kind of crabby, too.”

“Okay, now that we know negativity can be infectious, let's take turns saying something negative. As we do so we'll unwrap a kiss and throw the paper on the floor in the middle of our warm, intimate, circle. I'll begin, and of course, we'll all have to say things that other people would say, knowing that none of us would
ever
be negative or messy in the slightest way.”

Everyone looked embarrassed for a moment, then began saying negative things and tossing the papers down.

“I think school is stupid.”

“Traffic tie-ups make me want to lash out at people.”

“Standing in line drives me crazy.”

“The world is full of rude, crude dorks.”