Change Of Heart

I once blocked a federal-court doorway to protest the war in Iraq. For my act of civil disobedience, I spent a week in Philadelphia’s federal prison. Afterward I brought the newspaper clippings about my arrest to a family reunion in a Tennessee state park and hung them conspicuously on a wall in the main cabin, anticipating that some of my relatives would disapprove.

Instead everyone threw me a surprise party and presented me with a gift: a large metal file, so I could saw my way out the next time. Those who disagreed with me were as gracious as the rest, and all honored me for standing up for what I believed in. I was both moved and chagrined: I wouldn’t have given them such a warm reception had they been arrested for blocking the door to an abortion clinic.

Back home I attended a morning demonstration to welcome another war protester as she left prison. By noon she still hadn’t been released, and a policeman, who seemed tired of watching us and ready to go to lunch, asked me how much longer we would be. We struck up a conversation. He said he’d voted for Bush and supported the war, but also felt that we needed a third, less-corrupt political party. He believed unborn babies were the true innocents. The memory of my gracious relatives still fresh, I listened and kept my peace.

Later, when the protester was let out of prison and we were leaving, the policeman and I shook hands.

Janeal Turnbull Ravndal
Yellow Springs, Ohio

When my son’s friend Josh came to our door after school one day, I almost turned him away. Though only eleven, Josh made me nervous. His family had recently moved into a rented house near our upper-middle-class neighborhood. His parents drove an old car, and both worked during the day and were often gone in the evening. Josh had shoulder-length hair with dyed highlights and wore jeans that hung down low on his butt. I’d heard he had a “girlfriend,” and that they were more serious than sixth-graders should be. I complained to my husband that Josh was encouraging our son Ethan to push the limits of our rules: to ride his bike farther and to stay out later. Ethan thought Josh was cool.

Josh reminded me of many kids I’d known growing up. I, too, had parents who were gone a lot. My older brother and I were used to coming home to an empty house, making a sandwich for dinner, and watching TV or hanging out with friends. After our dad died, our mom worked evenings as a nurse, and my sixteen-year-old brother and his friends filled our house with empty beer cans and drug paraphernalia — which we’d clean up minutes before our mom got home at eleven.

Although I enjoyed the company of my brother’s friends and had crushes on a few of them, I also saw the sadness in their lives. One by one they dropped out of school, or got a girl pregnant, or were sent to jail. I spent more and more time with my own friends, who invited me into their warm, comfortable homes whenever I showed up. I ate supper and did homework there. Their parents always made me feel welcome.

So when Josh knocked on the door that afternoon, I let him come in for a snack while Ethan finished his homework. I asked Josh about school, his family, and what he wanted to do when he grew up. He answered eagerly and seemed happy for the attention.

The next night I invited him to stay for supper. By the middle of the meal, it was obvious Josh hadn’t had many family dinners: he picked up rice with his fingers, chewed with an open mouth, and interrupted our conversations to start his own. Even Ethan reminded him to use his fork.

I figured that my behavior at age eleven had probably been no better than Josh’s. My family never ate at home, and I’d never been taught table manners. I realized that had my friends’ parents been less compassionate and more judgmental, they might have sent me home, and my life might have turned out differently.

I told Josh he could eat with us whenever he wanted.

Kim Livingston
Oswego, Illinois

When I learned my wife was pregnant, I panicked. How could I care for a baby when I could barely take care of myself? What about watching football, sleeping in, and traveling on a moment’s notice? Would I have to give up the low-paying job I loved for something soulless in order to afford baby clothes, doctor bills, and a college fund? What would become of our steamy sex life (which is what had brought us to this point in the first place)? I felt resentful.

But from Odin’s first few minutes struggling for breaths under an oxygen hood, I was hooked. I hadn’t anticipated how deeply I’d fall for him: his long, wide-eyed gazes; his vulnerability. I also hadn’t foreseen how Odin would bring me closer to his mother. Though most of our conversations involve his schedule, sleeping patterns, and stool color, my wife and I share a bond now that transcends words. I watch her while she breast-feeds; she watches me play him songs on the mandolin. We are falling in love all over again.

Paul Grafton
Santa Barbara, California

In September 1962, my daughter entered the afternoon kindergarten program at our neighborhood elementary school. She eagerly went off to school each day, walking the three blocks by herself while I stood on the porch with her baby sister in my arms.

That October, President Kennedy announced that the Soviet Union had built nuclear-missile installations in Cuba. The U.S. would place a naval blockade on the island nation. It seemed as if a war might break out at any moment.

One afternoon my daughter cried and refused to go to school. She told me her class had practiced how to “duck and cover.” They’d been instructed to get under the table when the alarm sounded. And if she saw a bright light as she was walking home, she should go to the nearest house and ring the bell.

I tried to calm her fears, telling her that these things weren’t going to happen, though in my heart I wasn’t so sure. Then I bundled her up, asked a neighbor to watch the baby, and set out to walk her to kindergarten.

When we reached the crosswalk near the school, my daughter refused to go another step.

“You need to show her who’s in control,” the crossing guard said to me. “Just get her over here and turn around and go home. I’ll see that she goes to school.”

I looked at my daughter’s once-happy face, now streaked with tears. She’d thought of school as a safe place. (In a few days, she’d think of it that way again.) I couldn’t do anything about the missile crisis. But I could do something to make my little girl feel safe. I took her by the hand, and we went home.

Carole Hotelling
San Diego, California

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