The Girl on the Wall

The portrait of the young girl hangs on our living room wall for as long as I can remember. In her old-fashioned dress, she smiles demurely.

Steph, Katie and Jess, my sister Mary's daughters

I assume she's another knock-off print from the Green Stamp Store like Pinkie and Blue Boy. Mom has us kids licking stamps at the kitchen table like a small assembly line, and that's how she triumphantly acquires our living room decor.  A self-absorbed child, I am never once curious about the girl on the wall - not until after I've left for college. One weekend, home from school, I find myself curiously studying the young woman from another time. At once I feel a spark of recognition.

"Who's this girl, Mom?" I ask.

She looks up, surprised at my sudden interest. We've lugged basket after basket of laundry through the living room when we abruptly collapse on the sofa.

"My grandmother," she sighs, sinking into cushions.

Stunned, I notice for the first time the girl's cheekbones - so like Mom's. Not once have I ever heard my mother speak of her grandmother.

Mom shifts the basket beside her. "She died before I was born - when my dad was young."

Morgan, my sister Carry's
daughter

The girl, I learn, is Luella. In the picture, she's just graduated from high school. Later she will marry and give birth to two boys - the oldest is Allen, my grandfather. Luella is 39 when she learns she's dying of breast cancer.

"Allen," she says steadily to my twelve-year-old grandfather. "I need you to watch out for your baby brother. And your dad. He'll have a hard time."

Allen nods solemnly. Then he does something that later will cause him great shame. He lays his head on his mother's lap and cries like a baby. But for the rest of his life he will keep his promise.

The story I hear that day for the first time is tragic for another reason. My own young mother, who is beautiful and funny and escapes to her beloved piano on days my dad and all of us overwhelm her for attention, has herself been diagnosed with breast cancer. Wordless, she and I stare at each other over laundry baskets.

Samantha and Emily, my
brother Rick's daughters

"It won't happen to you, Mom," I finally say.

But it does. Just 18 months later. At one o'clock in the morning in cold April darkness, Mom leaves us forever. I am the oldest of ten, and my youngest brother Jeff is seven-years-old. Our giant of a father puts aside his own grief to make us feel safe, and my siblings and I depend on him and each other as we never have before.

After Mom's death, I study the picture of Luella intently searching her face. For what, I don't know. But I desperately wonder if my sisters and I, like Mom, will share Luella's fate.

Not long after Mom dies, my 12-year-old sister Terri comes to me, her eyes wide with fear.

"I have breast cancer," she says.

"Terri," I say, "you don't have cancer."

Her eyes fill. "I do. I have a lump."

Sydney, Brandi and Nikki, my
sister Deb's daughters

 I examine the lump which turns out to be a bone.

 "Everybody has it," I assure her. Relief fills her small face.

So closely connected are we to Mom that my sisters Deb, Mary, Terri, Carry and I feel certain we will all  die as young women. We schedule our mammograms and then plan our funerals as we wait in agony for the  results.

"My brother Tom should deliver my eulogy," I blurt  out of the blue to my husband one day. We've been  strolling around the lake together chatting about our son's elementary Christmas program when I make this sudden declaration.

My husband John patiently sighs. "Don't tell me. It must be mammogram time."

This is the way it is. I live one year at a time - from mammogram to mammogram.

Kailey, my brother Joe's daughter

My sisters and I make deals. If one of us is lying comatose in the hospital, it will be the responsibility of the others to sneak into the room to shave any unwanted facial hair. We prop each other up for every mammogram, biopsy and suspicious ultrasound. Then one day, Terri calls me from the Walmart parking lot in Lincoln.

"The doctor just called!" she sobs. "I have it! I've got breast cancer!"

Now 44 and the wife and mother of six kids, Terri is diagnosed at the same age Mom was. I cannot take away her fear the way I could when she was 12. Nevertheless, my sisters and I rush to Lincoln to accompany Terri and her good husband Paul to every appointment. Doctor Janet Grange, a much respected breast cancer surgeon in Omaha, tells Terri the cancer is caught early.

"You're a perfect candidate for a lumpectomy," she assures Terri.

But quaking with fear, Terri decides to have a double mastectomy and put her fears to rest forever. I think I have never seen my little sister so brave.

McKenzie, Whitney and Jamie, my 
brother Mick's daughters

Only two weeks after Terri's surgery, my sweet sister Deb's mammogram reveals atypical hyperplasia, a pre-cancer of the breast. Once again, my sisters and I sit shoulder to shoulder in the small examination room as Dr. Grange tells us something is off in our genetic makeup.

In a heartbeat we know what we will do. Deb, Mary and I will undergo preventive double mastectomies. We're tired of living in fear, and Terri has made us brave. That year of 2010, Deb undergoes a mastectomy in November, I go next in December, and Mary follows in January. Carry, our youngest sister recently divorced, refuses to have the surgery.

"I'll be careful!" she promises.

We respect her choice. Barely in her 40's, Carry is young and attempting to date again. I understand her reluctance. But when she flips completely and opts for breast enhancement surgery rather than a mastectomy, I hit the roof.

"What is she thinking!" Too angry to speak to Carry herself, I rail at my sisters instead. "You wait! She'll get cancer underneath all that boob job and expect us to drop everything to rush to Omaha and take care of her!" I shake with fury.

"And we will," Deb says calmly. Because Deb's the nice one.

Our words are prophetic. When Carry is diagnosed with breast cancer, we immediately drive to Omaha. I am with her when our heroic Dr. Grange must gently inform Carry that her cancer is aggressive and must be treated with a double mastectomy and chemo.

Karley and Kelsey, my brother
Tom's daughters

"But it's early!" Dr. Grange comforts my sobbing baby sister. "Your breast implant pushed the tumor up to the surface and made it possible for us to catch it right away. It probably saved your life!"

So what do I know? God works in mysterious ways.

Carry is the last of us to lose her breasts. After months of chemo, she is healthy and happy and a fearless advocate for breast cancer awareness.

It's been eight years since Terri was diagnosed. We are all free of breast cancer, and the relief should be nothing short of liberating.

Except that last July, my darling little sister Deb is diagnosed with an aggressive form of endometrial cancer. Even though her cancer is caught early, Deb fears for her life and the lives of her three daughters.

"You will promise me now," she sits down with her daughters Nikki, Brandi and Sydney, "that you will find out what's going on in this family and do what you have to do to protect yourselves."

That's the rub. The next generation of daughters is coming of age, and the nagging question persists. What about our genetic makeup is determined to take down the females of our family?

Brandi, Deb's daughter and a new mother, decides to take the bull by the horns. It's time, she tells us, to be genetically tested. She and all my nieces deserve to know what they're dealing with.

Clare, Sarah and Patti, my sister Terri's daughters

That's how all of us - a large family of females - happen to be in my living room on a warm afternoon last month with another Brandi, Brandi Kay Preston. A 27-year-old dynamo who at 22 undergoes a double mastectomy herself, Brandi Kay is a genetic advocate determined to help other women at high risk, a promise she makes to her own young mother before she succumbs to breast cancer. Founder of the Hereditary Cancer Foundation based in Omaha, she travels the country urging women to advocate for themselves and to explore their genetic makeups. She very much wants to study our family. Even if our own insurance companies will not cover the cost of genetic testing, Brandi Kay promises her organization will foot the bill.

Cathy

My sisters and I are astounded at the courage of our daughters. Kelsey, my brother Tom's youngest daughter, is too young to be tested. Karley, Tom's oldest, and Nikki, Deb's oldest, are not yet ready to know. How can I blame them? For so many young women, the truth is a terrible burden. Yet, my other nieces are desperate for knowledge. They plan to be wives and mothers soon. For them the uncertainty is worse than the burden of knowing.

"Growing up," my niece Brandi confides to us, "I remember how Mom would mark all your mammogram appointments on the calendar. Then she'd pray like hell and shake in fear every time the phone rang. I knew that would be my future, too," Brandi's luminous blue eyes fill, "and I've decided there's nothing else to do but be as proactive as I can."

Deb, Mary and Terri

All by herself, Brandi has organized this gathering and persuaded almost every one of her 18 girl cousins to be tested. Now they huddle together in my living room with three women who will deliver to them the fate of our genetic makeup - genetic advocate Brandi Kay Preston, physician assistant Skyler Jesz, and the pleasant nurse who will draw our blood.

Each of us and my beautiful nieces submit to the blood test. Then we wait.

In a matter of weeks, we receive the results.

Carry

While none of us tests positive for the BRCA1 or 2 mutation, the results reveal VUS - (Variance of Uncertain Significance). In other words, scientists haven't identified every mutation for breast cancer. Three of my nieces, Deb, Carry and I are all carriers. With the single exception of my niece Emily, however, every other niece is at a moderate or high risk for breast cancer, even if they don't test positive for VUS.

The only thing we understand, geneticist Brandi Kay explains, is that almost all of us, even those who don't carry the VUS abnormality, still have a strong familial risk.

So we continue to wait for the pieces of the puzzle to fall into place. Hopefully our extensive gene pool will help to provide researchers with a few more clues. In the meantime, my courageous nieces are talking. And planning. Preventive surgery may well be in their futures, and they're mentally preparing themselves for the day they will protect themselves against breast and reproductive cancer.

But who knows? Ultimately, perhaps a cure or vaccine is just on the horizon. That's our fervent prayer. However it plays out, these gorgeous girls will figure it out, and they will never let cancer take them from their families.

Our mother, Patti Brown.
1930-1979.

Mom would be proud of them. I feel her close. She's watching out for her granddaughters. So is their great-great grandmother Luella, the girl on the wall, who had no inkling of the powerful force she would become throughout the next one hundred years in the lives of 24 women - her many daughters. Thanks to Mom and Luella, we will all live long lives.

How I wish now that I could know the girl on the wall. That I could sit close and ask about her little sons, her terrible fear of leaving them, and her eventual and helpless surrender to breast cancer.

How I wish I could hold her hand - and tell her thank you.

Jordan Engle

Jordan Engle works side by side with GICC students at a Husker Harvest Days' sandwich booth handing out chips, pouring sodas, taking orders left and right. Finally, a long time adult supervisor, impressed with his hard work, claps him on the back.

Jordan Engle

"What grade are you in, son?"

Jordan blinks. "I'm the principal," he says.

It's an easy mistake. Our new principal, like the one before him, looks like a kid. And to those of us senior citizens still teaching at GICC, he really is a kid. But we like him. We like him a lot.

Mr. Engle arrives on the scene with zest and fervor. A first year administrator fresh from Sutton where for five years he's been a math instructor, golf coach, the one-act play director, speech coach, the National Honor Society proctor, the Data team chair, and a crisis team member - yes, ALL of those - he seems the man for the job. Nevertheless, the new principal gig isn't always easy. Almost immediately, the school board votes to shut down the senior lounge - the secluded little space above the old gym - deeming it a liability issue. Mr. Engle delivers the blow to 40 shell shocked seniors.

The next week, however, he brings every senior Raising Cane's chicken to ease the disappointment. In the middle of a throng of kids, he jokes and cajoles and dispenses savory chicken fingers.

"He understands kids," says senior Jenna Lowry, "and he makes everyone feel welcome and better even when things don't always work out. He just interacts with everybody in such a positive way, and he's making this school better."

Mr. Engle is, above all else, a devout Catholic. It's what speaks to everybody at Central Catholic. He's the real thing. Father Jim Golka, pastor of St. Mary's Cathedral, is immediately impressed with Engle at his interview for the position of principal.

"It was clear to me," Father Golka says, "that his strongest asset is his Catholic identity. He lives and breathes his faith and has a deep desire to share God's love with people around him, especially young people."

Engle freely admits his Catholic faith is the result of a circuitous journey. Just before he enters kindergarten, his parents separate and divorce. He and his older brother still remember the pain of that difficult time. Only a year later, Jordan's grandfather - a beloved long time principal from the Logan, Iowa school system - will die, and a young Jordan remembers feeling suddenly adrift. It's only years later, just as he's entering middle school, that his mother remarries. His new stepfather, a farmer in the small town of Elgin, Nebraska, is a strong Catholic and convinces Jordan's mother to move her boys to Elgin and enroll them at Elgin Pope John. When he is 12-years-old, Engle and his mother and brother will all join the Church.

"Sometimes," he remembers, "I'd go to Mass by myself even when my family couldn't go." It's with his new stepfather, his newfound faith, and the Elgin Pope John community that Engle at last feels anchored.

"I know now that family is the building block of the church," he says. In his adult life, he says, he's committed to involving God in his own family. That commitment begins, however, when he's a 12-year-old navigating for the first time his Catholic faith. But in high school, the teenage years erupt, and Engle becomes somewhat of a troublemaker.

"Nothing serious," he says. "I was afraid of my mother. I'm still afraid of her."

Jordan Engle - Elgin Pope John bad boy.

Nevertheless, in high school he entertains himself by sneaking into the science closet and deliberately moving chemicals to the dismay of his confused chemistry teacher. The very next week, he arrives to class with a twelve pack of Dr. Pepper and candy flouting the teacher's absolute "no food in my classroom" policy. His pranks can hardly be classified as criminal activity, but Engle realizes now that in his own way he was finally grieving both the death of his much loved grandfather and his parents' marriage.

At Elgin Pope John School, though, in a strong community of believers, Engle is coaxed into immersing himself into TEC (Teens Encounter Christ). At a TEC retreat he meets a lovely blond girl from Humphrey St. Francis called Jenna. Jordan can't know then she will one day be his wife, but he recognizes that somehow Jenna is helping him turn back to his faith.

"I was very unhappy when I was a teenager, and I give Jenna a hundred percent credit even though she'll deny it to this day. She helped me to understand I had a hole in my heart, and the only way to fill it was that perfect fit of love for God and my neighbor."

Today, Jenna is a a third grade teacher at Gates Elementary, and the two of them are parents to vivacious Josie who, Engle jokes, is "two and a half going on 25", and year-old Carson with his sweet smile and mashed potato cheeks.

Engle family from left: Jenna, Carson, Josie, Jordan

The family is delighted to be part of the Grand Island Central Catholic and Resurrection Church communities. Jordan, as is his style, leaps in to fill every spot. At GICC's Thursday morning Mass, he sings and accompanies the choir on his guitar. When an advanced math professor drops out of the curriculum at the last second, Jordan jumps in. Besides his vast principal duties, he teaches math second period every day. He even occasionally makes breakfast for the faculty.

"I make a mean breakfast burrito," he boasts.

In a short time, Engle and his family have become part of our GICC fabric, and it seems meant to be. He admits to being awestruck at the amazing involvement of Central Catholic families.

"I can't believe how good the kids are, and our faculty buys into this place one hundred percent."

As for his own role at GICC, Jordan Engle says he hopes to excite everybody at Central Catholic about what the school can be moving forward. But mostly, he says, he hopes that all of us - staff, students and parents - can develop a spiritual connection with each other.

"One that will last a long time," he flashes a boyish grin. "Forever."

Ladies of the Club

A "progressive" book club. That's what my friend Barb Beck calls it.

"Would you be interested?" she inquires.

I blink. What does a progressive book club look like, I wonder? And how progressive can an old pro-life Catholic like me be exactly?

Left to right: Barb Beck, Sue Clement, Vikki Deuel, Lori Jeffres, Joan Black,
Christa Speed, Cathy Howard, Cyndee Shellhaas.

Progressive enough, it turns out.

Cyndee Shellhaas, the unofficial leader, hosts our very first meeting. Right off the bat, we set firm ground rules. Only the first thirty minutes should be reserved for socializing, everyone agrees politely. After all, we don't want to be one of those sorry book clubs that meets only to drink, stuff our faces, and gossip about the Kardashians.

Five years later, by God, I'm proud to say we've never once even mentioned the Kardashians. Sadly, the other rules fall by the wayside. Wine flows, Lori's lemon squares are to die for, and as for when the thirty minute rule for socializing disintegrates, none of us can say for sure.

Maybe it's when Lori makes us read The Weatherman, a scintillating and cosmopolitan murder mystery.

"I don't know that I was prepared for all the sex," Sue cocks her famous eyebrow.

"You're welcome," Lori never bats an eye.

Or maybe it's when we cry our way through All the Light We Cannot See, a World War II account that somehow causes us to reminisce about our grade school days in the 50's and 60's when we obediently hide under our desks during the Duck and Cover drill. Vikki, who grows up in Ralston right next to Omaha SAC, a prime target, remembers her mother's strict directions in the event of a nuclear attack.

"Find your little brother in school and walk to your grandparents' house in Grand Island," she instructs the horrified ten-year-old. "But be sure to call when you get to Chapman so they know you're coming."

Because you wouldn't want to be rude and arrive unannounced.

In the beginning, I'm not sure I'm smart enough to hang around these enormously intelligent women. Most of us are educators: Vikki Deuel is the retired long time principal of Walnut Middle School and one of the finest administrators I've ever known. Joan Black, Cyndee Shellhaas and Christa Speed are extremely gifted retired teachers in the Grand Island Public School system. Gayle Bradley, before she retires, works with at-risk kids at Grand Island Senior High. Sue Clement is our resident historian and astounds us with her knowledge. Not only was she a long time organist and choir director at her church, but she also taught kids history at the Stuhr Museum in the facility's historic buildings. Barb Beck, like me, is still working. She's a community college instructor in early childhood education and still the brightest, funniest girl I've ever known. And Lori Jeffres, the only one of us young enough to still have estrogen coursing through her veins, keeps the service techs in line at Jerry's Sheet Metal.

                                                                                                  "OMG - what if the pies don't get baked, the turkey doesn't get roasted and the cranberry relish isn't finished because this book keeps calling my name?!?"  (a Book Club Facebook post by Vikki Deuel right before Thanksgiving)

These girls are beautiful, passionate, crazy fun, and, like me, suckers for a good book. We've devoured the works of Charles Dickens, Tony Hillerman, Pat Conroy, and Margaret Atwood to name a few. Every selection is as diverse as the women in our club. and even Sue, who hates any kind of gore, dutifully plows her way through Stephen King. Somehow, as we share our own perspectives of great literature, my friends and I are sharing our own lives as well. It's because of Book Club that I know Gayle chases away a potential kidnapper when she's a tiny girl.

"Do you know my mother lives right there!" she wags a finger in the face of the man who tries to coax her into his car. Overwhelmed by the spunky little girl who relentlessly scolds him, the man throws up his hands and skids away.

Because of Book Club, I know that Barb, one day in the community college class she teaches, is slapped in the face by a small girl who's recently moved into foster care and been forced to wear clothes that are not her own.

"You needed to be mad at somebody today," my compassionate friend soothes the traumatized little girl.

I know that Cyndee's mother was orphaned, that Christa tenderly nurses her dying mother at the same time she plans her daughter's wedding, and that Sue does such a profound impersonation of Grand Island's historical Edith Abbott that I choke back a lump in my throat.

The ravages of Book Club.

We don't appreciate the real bonds of friendship, however, until election year, 2016. Abruptly, Book Club takes on a new dimension. To the last member, we're petrified of candidate Donald Trump. It's all we talk about.

"He'll never get elected," I try to sound confident.

But Sue has an ominous feeling. 

On election night, each of us in our own homes, we stare at our television sets in horror.
I can't stand it any more and pull out my phone to message the book club.

"C'mon, Florida!" I plead.

But as the map bleeds red, Christa messages one fatal line: "We're screwed."

Just like that, Book Club becomes vitally important. In a country divided, we all become aware that family members, work colleagues and old friends are drawing lines in the sand. Conversations become stilted. After silly arguments with people I love most in the world, I learn to keep my mouth shut. 

During a pleasant lunch gathering, a friend of mine shakes her head bemoaning the "free houses"  Habitat for Humanity gives away. Not so long ago, I would have confronted her. It's pointless now, I realize. Even so, I feel like a traitor - to the Ortega triplets - three exceptional graduates whose parents work relentlessly to earn a down payment for their own Habitat house and after many years march into the bank to triumphantly make the final mortgage payment. I think of Bev Yax, whose smile lights up my American Literature class, and the day she tells her classmates she'd give her life for the Dreamer's Act. Or Youhanna Ghaifan, also a successful graduate of our school, whose parents flee from warring Sudan to give their children a better life in America.

Thank God for Book Club. Other than my own home with my own husband, it's the only other safe place in which I rant and rage and vent. "We're not radical people!" I look around at each dear face in the room. "We're just reasonable human beings!"

Cyndee Shellhaas, far right, with her family at the Lincoln
Women's March, spring 2017.

Cyndee places a hand on my arm. "Don't you see?" she says in her gentle, wise way. "Everybody in the country feels they're only being reasonable."

She's right, of course. I suspect, honestly, that most of us in the United States fall in the middle during these turbulent times. Practically everybody I know, regardless of personal politics, is horrified by the border separation of children and parents. Most of us condemn racism, defend those of us who are disabled, and love without condition our gay sons and daughters. Yet even in our community, in every community, an explosive few feel empowered and emboldened by the President's new, pervasive atmosphere. And they scare me.

They don't scare my Book Club friends, though. Cyndee Shellhaas gathers her entire family in Lincoln to protest at the Women's March. She and Vikki Deuel commit their time and energy to the Literacy Council teaching, encouraging and befriending refugees who bravely try to make a new start in this country. Barb Beck and her lovely husband Dave earnestly teach one of Cyndee's students, Abshir Awalie, to drive and obtain a license as he studies for his community college degree. 

Barb and Dave Beck, middle and right, preparing to teach
Abshir Awalie to drive.

Later, Abshir will tell his mentor Cyndee, "My life is so good."

So is mine. I'm lucky to have these friends. They came to me late in life. But in their 50's, 60's and 70's, my book club cronies are teaching me it's never too late to make a difference. 

Every fourth Monday evening of the month is an event. Lori makes us laugh til we cry, Sue offers astonishing perspective on every event in history, Joan's passion is contagious, and Christa is serenely resilient. The books we read, and not always books we'd ever choose to read, enrich and inspire us nevertheless. They persuade us to see the world and its inhabitants in a different way and to examine our own lives in the process.

These last five years, my friends and I have discovered that good friendships can spring forth from the unlikeliest of places, that experience really is the best teacher, that even when knees, hips and memories deteriorate, we still have a lot to offer.

And that there's nothing better in the whole world than sharing a good book with remarkable friends.