Be Gentle by Leanne Dyck (short story)

How do you express strength?

photo by ldyck

Be Gentle

We sat around the supper table and before Mom passed the potatoes, we said our prayer to God. When I unfolded my hands, unbowed my head, and opened my eyes, Dad held me in his stern gaze, "Remember, Penny, be nice, be kind, be gentle."

Each night, after my prayers, I recited, "Be nice, be kind, be gentle."

Each morning, before I opened my eyes, "Be nice, be kind, be gentle."

But, at school, she waited for me in the girls' washroom. She stood hidden from the teachers on the other side of the door. "Where do you think you're going?" She demanded. "You. You can pee in your pants."

"Please," I begged.

"No." Hard. "Unless..." Softer. 

My need grew.

She held out her hand. "A quarter."

I gave her money day after day after--. Be nice, be kind, be--.

I closed my eyes. And it was there. I could no longer contain it. The bully was pushed to the floor. Blood dripped from her nose. After that day the washroom was always free.

I walked home from school every day. He waited for me maybe behind a tree, maybe... It doesn't matter. Wherever. All that is important was that he was suddenly there. He and I were alone. Was school... Was home... Was life hard for him? He took it out on me. He threw my school books in the bushes, my pencil case in the ditch. Day after day after--. Be nice, be kind, be--. I could no longer contain it. The bully got scared and ran away. He never waited for me after that day. 

But at home, Dad looked at me with such disappointment. "Be nice. Be kind," he said with sad eyes. "Be gentle."

I knew he knew what I'd done. I knew word had spread.

"Why!" It wasn't a question. It was an accusation. "I tried to teach you a better way, but you didn't listen. Strength. Real strength isn't in letting it out. It's in finding a peaceful solution to your problems." He held me in his arms. "And now we  have no other choice," he told me. "We have to move. We have to start all over again somewhere else."

It was my fault. I'd been weak. I'd let it out.

If we'd stayed they would have come for us with torches, with pitchforks. And so we fled. We were monsters; we had no choice. 

I wrote this story too early on Tuesday, January 28. It was inspired by thoughts of Easter.

More...

Book suggestion:  

We Shall Be Monsters

Edited by Derek Newman-Stille

Pays homage to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Modern Prometheus)


Next Sunday evening...


photo by ldyck

19 Poetry Publishers--Magazines

A list of 19 magazines that publish poetry

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Guest Post: A. J. Willetts (my dad) an advocate for world peace

After my dad's death (on December 11, 1999), I searched for his writing. I found one speech and carefully tucked it away in a journal. Just this week, I was hunting for something else and found my dad's words--and I knew I had to share them with you. He delivered this speech on November 11, 1996, to veterans, members of the legion and guests.

My dad wrote...

(my dad giving a speech--circa the 1980s)

The closing words of every legion meeting.

At the going down of the sun

And in the morning we will

Remember them.

We will remember them--for they were our schoolmates. They were the kids we played with--the people we worked with.

After fifty years we remember them and the debt we owe.

We remember not only those who gave their lives but those who came home broken, wounded, scarred--both on the inside and the outside.

We remember our comrades and the price they paid for us and for Canada--

And we remember the thousands and thousands of others who paid--

The mothers and babies

The little kids

The young people

Mothers and fathers

And the old people

the grandparents

All those who died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They paid--they paid the price for us. They bought our freedom.

Don't think about the horrible price they paid--it's too awful, too terrible.

But remember them we must--and in our remembering let our hate and revulsion for war grow stronger and stronger until we join with all the people of the world to end this terrible curse of war--until that great day dawns may we ever pray

Lord God of Hosts

Be with us yet

Lest we Forget, Lest we Forget

(the radar base in northern Newfoundland where my dad served during WWII)

More...

Please click this link...

Remembering Them on Remembrance Day

to read my Remembrance Day inspired short story as well as more of my dad's writing.

Next post:  Sunday, November 19 at 5 PM PT
Rainbow Ice cream (short story)
Think back to your childhood. Where did you first go all by yourself? What did you spend your allowance on? How did it make you feel? Reminisce along with me.

Remembering him... (short story) by Leanne Dyck

For remembrance on Remembrance Day

I once knew a man. Although he was old when I met him, by the twinkle in his eye, I could see glimpses of the young man he had once been.

He had been of age upon the onset of the second world war and like the other men of his community, he was eager to enlist--an eagerness driven by a passion to see the world. He wanted to sail from cloud to cloud on the wings of a huge iron bird. But it was not to be. While his friends saw active duty in Italy and France, he was tucked away on a radar base in Newfoundland. Yet, 'they also serve who only stand and wait'. No, this man never saw active duty. There were memories he could never share. Horrors he had never lived.

In sadness and in pride, he stood straight and tall each and every Remembrance Day. He had known the men who never returned. He ensure that I honoured them, as well. Through him, I saw the soldiers not as faded images from the distant past but as men who had 'lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow/Loved and were loved.'

I once knew a man. That man was my dad.

Written 2003

Revised 2021