"The man look at me and real sad on his face, he say real quiet, 'He is not much bigger than the stick.'

"Akello has been now in bed for long. They say if he makes to four we have party and I make sign of sticks and rocks, Happy Birthday, Akello! Maybe you, yes, can come? I would like to have picture of Akello, if no trouble-like, to remember him after he. . . .

"I never get to have a picture of mama. She did the passing during the rains and now, I am the mama, growing the millet and passion fruits for my brothers. I am good at it, cooking. You see.

"You will take passion fruits, I give you.

"They sell the cabinets out in market, but we got mama's for nothing. Me and Zalah and Akello, we did not have cart to bring it out here, and no money. The man in the market, he even carry it here and put mama in. He make me lie with him, say it would make the sickness leave him, say I am young and can fight it. But Mr. Kabaka -- he is farmer in village over, comes round to see me and my brothers some days -- Mr. Kabaka say the cabinet man a fool. Mr. Kabaka say I will do the passing soon. Mr. Kabaka say, 'Teach Zalah.'

"That is where mama's cabinet is, there, in garden. The boys play there and I am yelling, 'Do not squashing that!' They just yell back. They should look and see mama in her cabinet, under. They do not care. I say to go play in the yard. Akello can hear playing out there and he likes hear laughing. Soon they play on top of Akello's grave. I am sad at that. Know, we put our mamas and brothers and sisters where they did the living.

"I guess they will not know what to do with me. Garden or yard. By then there would not be much garden, what with no one to tend it and the boys there. By then, Zalah will have to, Zalah will have to know to grow millet. He made seven years before mama did the passing, but he is baby next to me. I grow up fast after the rains. He will grow fast.

"Zalah will want to remember. Please, give my picture for him. Harvest, it come when mama was lying down. But I do not feel badly yet. The harvest, it come soon. No rain for many days.

"If the sickness gets in Zalah too. . . .

"Mama, before she did the passing, she say, 'The family must to carry on.' Zalah is strong to fight. You come back, take picture of Zalah daughters. You will bring them color ball, lollipops when you come."

Personal Day

By Julie Walton Shaver
July 30, 2003

Sometimes when I drive to my night job in New York City, I take the scenic route, driving by a park in a residential neighborhood with large old trees and sculpted grass. When the weather is even marginally nice, kids are out in the evening swinging on the swing sets.

I can't stand it. Every time I take that route, I think to myself, I'm just going to stop for a minute and walk over there and swing, be a person who doesn't work on this beautiful evening, be free to do whatever I want to do. Of course, I never stop. Got to get to work if not on time, at least as close to on time as humanly possible. (As humanly possible for a human who has no access to a helicopter, that is.)

One day recently, on a whim, I found a colleague willing to cover my shift at the last possible minute, and I took the night off. My boys and I had an early dinner, then went for a walk. The humidity was low. A slight breeze jostled the leaves. No sweater was needed, no spritzing fan either. The clouds in the deep blue sky were wispy and white, high, with brush strokes of orange around the edges. We ended up at a remote neighborhood park we hadn't realized was there -- and there were swings! The good kind -- large metal frame, a couple of kid-size swings just the right size for the boys, plus, right next to that, the perfect size swing for me. I went as high as I could go, my feet skimming the top of the 80-foot pin oak 50 yards directly in front of me. But only bits of sky are visible in my mind's snapshot: my sandaled feet pointing at the highest leaves of the grand old pin oak, then a thin orange-white cloud, then a patch of indigo, then back down again. Wood chips, tree trunk, leaves, orange, white, indigo, then back down again.

We brought home a rock from the park. My free-to-swing-in-the-evening rock.

Today's events may have seemed to some as unconnected. But to me, it was a case of fate intertwining to redeem an innocent, but awful, mistake from my youth.

We parked on the leeward side of the lake today, an afternoon trip to the park just to relax, me and my two boys. The park was filled with families who had the same idea. As we approached the lakeside railing, a baby rabbit jumped from the wooden ledge and into the water, scared by all the people and commotion.

This little rabbit was so tiny, he looked like a baby chipmunk. Plus, who knew rabbits could swim? He headed for the island in the center of the lake, but the swimming rabbit was so exciting, the children followed along the shore and ran across the bridge, scaring the little rabbit into swimming even farther out. By now, he had been paddling for 10 minutes and was beginning to slow down. I was afraid he was going to drown.

Finally, the crowd thinned, the kids rejoined their games, the parents chatted. But me, I watched the little rabbit, never diverting my eyes lest I lose him in the reflection of the lake surface. He swam 300 yards darting and dodging to the opposite shore, trying desperately to hide under the branches of a weeping willow. But this is a man-made lake; the shore was designed to keep waterfowl from climbing up anywhere except the island in the center, so the rabbit's only choice was to swim back to the island. It was too far, and he was only a baby, panicking. He kept swimming out a few feet, then back into the wall. Out, then back. Every time I got near, he swam farther out, scared. I tried to sweet talk him into swimming over to me so I could fish him out. But he wouldn't come near.

Finally, I gave up. He'd been paddling for 20 minutes. No way he was going to survive much longer. I walked away. "I'm so sorry, little rabbit."

I made it 20 feet before I turned back around. Where had he gone? I walked closer, edged up to the lake side, knelt down on the wooden ledge, peered over, the knees of my pants soaking mud. There he was, his nose just inches above the water line, his hind feet still. But when he saw me, he sprinted out again, fear overtaking. I stood up, watching, feeling a horrible let down. He would surely drown.

Then he turned, stopped paddling, and stared at me for a few seconds. I squinted. Was he sinking? Then he swam with all his might straight for me, faster than ever. I knelt down and he paddled right into my hand. I scooped him up and flung him onto the shore, thinking he would jump up and run. But he didn't. He just lay there, no bigger than the length of my hand, panting, shivering, shaking, in shock. His eyes began to close as I knelt beside and watched, certain he was dying. One by one, the children began to gather, a crowd to cheer me for rescuing the baby rabbit. But there he lay, dying, for all the kids to see. Some of the little ones started to cry, and I wondered if I should just lay the little rabbit back down into the water, let him die with dignity and in peace, send the children away with a lie that he'd swim for the opposite shore later.

But I couldn't do it. One by one, the children left, dejected and sad. "Mommy, he's dying," they'd say to their parents, who kept their distance on the sidewalk. I sat alone now, watching the little rabbit panting ever slower, wondering if the sun beating down on his wet fur was warming or baking. He rolled over on his back, his pointy claws sticking straight up, his white underfur blowing in the breeze. He began to twitch and shake, his breathing almost gone. I imagined a hawk, once the park crowds thinned, swooping down and having the little rabbit for dinner, an easy meal.

I picked him up and put him on his tummy under the canopy of a bush, covering his back with leaves for camouflage. His eyes opened a tad. One child wandered over. Then another. Then another. The rabbit sat still, peering at us, breathing slowly, not moving. The children wanted to pet him. I said no; let him breathe. He never moved. One by one the kids left and then so did I, hoping the little rabbit just might make it now.

Bradley, my 9-year-old son, wouldn't leave the park until he checked on Chipper one final time. ("Chipper" was decided upon because we thought he was a chipmunk at first.) We made it back through the park and there he was, panting, leaves still covering his back, not moving as baby rabbits should when approached by humans. After a few minutes of staring and praying, Bradley gently touched one of Chipper's hind legs and he hopped once. Bradley smiled at me. A minute later, Chipper hopped another time. Then again. And again, finally disappearing inside the bushes.

He's going to make it! Yes!

Bradley called me a hero, saying I had saved that little rabbit's life.

I didn't feel like a hero 15 years ago in bumper-to-bumper traffic on a side street in Philadelphia. A baby bird landed in the road beside my window. All I needed to do was yell "fly away!" and he'd be safe. But I didn't. I did nothing. A city bus roared by, flattening the baby. I cried. And I mean, I cried hard.

By saving Chipper, I finally know I have it in me to do the right thing.

He Answers My Prayers

by Julie Walton Shaver
July 25, 2003

I always wanted to be a singer. I mean, I know I wasn't born to scat like Ella or croon like Vaughn. But if I could just be good enough to sing backup for a spotlight singer, well, that would be the life. I always wanted to be able to do the harmonies, have it come naturally. It never did.

"Dear God," I prayed on a regular basis, "I wish I could sing."

Admittedly, God did give me a gift for music, for which I am grateful, because as long as the person who stands next to me in my church choir sings the right notes -- let's just hope she's not tone-deaf -- I can often sing the right notes too! For I am, by nature, a follower. I sing what I hear, not necessarily the notes printed on the page.

So one summer, much to my surprise, my choir director called and asked if I would sing a duet in church. "I think your voice will blend nicely with Merry's," she said. "She used to sing solos for us regularly, but prefers a partner now. Would you join Merry in a duet?"

I sat in stunned silence.

Be careful what you pray for, I thought. Next time say, "Dear God, I wish I could sing well."

I knew I was not good enough to sing a duet in front of 300 people, for while it was safe to say I had an acceptable choir voice, "she has a pretty solo voice" could not be uttered in the same sentence with my name. And then there's the fact that I sing the notes of the person standing next to me and so a duet, a duet with harmonies, would be particularly troublesome for someone like me. But maybe this is the answer to my prayer, I thought. Maybe God is saying, "You want to sing, do you? Well, sing then." Still, I hesitated. I am a member of the choir, and in a flash everyone would know how lousy I am.

My choir director waited patiently on the phone.

Finally, floating through the phone line from my end to hers came these words: "Yes, well, O.K. When?" My ears were quite surprised to hear this, as were the butterflies who by then had already set up camp in my stomach.

Two weeks later, there we stood; me, Merry and my butterflies; singing harmony. The most amazing thing was the fact that I made it through the duet without fainting. The after-church praise was honest: "Wow. I can't believe you had the nerve to sing in front of people!"

At Christmas, the director asked me again, "Would you sing a duet with Merry on Epiphany?"

"Yes, well, O.K."

The butterflies who now watch my every protein struck steel on flint, and the nightmares of failing began. "Dear God," I prayed, "you answered my prayer, and I'm singing, but I need help. Help!" I practiced a lot. The gig came and went. The duet was not a disaster. I did not faint.

The following summer the director asked again, "Sing? With Merry? You'll do it, yes?" The strange dreams of making a complete fool of myself began, and my husband asked, "Why do you keep saying yes if this causes you such agony?" And I said, "She asked me. I can't say no." I couldn't say no. In my mind, saying no would be like saying "thanks but no thanks" to God.

This summer set was a trio, a three-part harmony, and I would be singing the middle part. Even though I could hit my notes with few problems when I practiced alone, every time the trio of women rehearsed together, I got thrown off by the harmony, routinely singing one particular B-flat too high, and messing up one whole phrase. And to make matters even worse, my dejected expression and drooped shoulders signaled failure, even to those with no ear.

I did not hit that note even once in rehearsals.

On performance day, we gathered a half hour before the service. No B-flat. It just wasn't there. My butterfly-buddies had flown up to my eyeballs and morphed into itty bitty fireflies; my knees weakening.

As luck or God would have it, I had also been asked to deliver the "Call to Worship" that Sunday -- the opening pronouncement that tells the congregation to stop chatting now -- and so I was to enter the pulpit along with the senior pastor, Paul. In a small room at the back of the Sanctuary minutes before the service was to begin, Paul donned his pastor's robe and prayed out loud for God's help in delivering a powerful sermon. After he said "Amen," I added, "Oh, and God? Could you please help me hit that B-flat I keep missing?" Paul smiled a bright smile and, saying "Amen" again, picked up his Bible and sermon notes and moved toward the door, thus dashing my hopes that he was going to figure out how to get me out of this mess. Didn't he realize that I was actually feeling dizzy here?

But just then, as Paul was walking toward me, he reached into his pocket and brought something out in his balled up fist. Picking up my wrist, he turned my hand over and made the gesture of giving me what he had taken from his pocket. But it was nothing, just air.

I glanced a question mark.

He replied, "It's your B-flat."

When the trio was over, my face smiling an uncontrollable smile, Merry patted me on the back, saying, "You did it! You got the B-flat!"

And I said, "God gave it to me. Just ask Paul."

__________

Julie sings alto in her church choir, except for whenever she stands next to that one guy who is a really confident tenor.

A Horror Story

There is no movie more responsible for securing my irrational fear of personal massacre than Friday the 13th.

I went to see the R-rated film as a 15-year-old, thanks to my inability to resist peer pressure from my high school buddy, Stephanie. An entire week went by before I was actually able to sleep somewhere besides my parents' bed, and my brother would walk around humming the Psycho-esque music all day just to see me squirm.

A few days after I finally made it back to my own room, I was home alone when a thunderstorm knocked out the power. I sat staring at my doorway, watching the lightning flash, and praying that the sound of someone slowly creeping down the hall towards my room was merely my imagination. (Turned out only to be my very real doberman pinscher, who seemed as scared as I was by the storm. But I was never so glad for her company as I was that night, that's for sure.)

To this day, 23 years later, I am still haunted by that movie.

So last night, when I pull into my garage at 2 a.m., in the silent stillness of my little New Jersey town, I get out of the car, and all of a sudden, I hear the sound of a man's voice coming from the back of the garage, near the door into the house, and the voice says very loudly, "This is a hammer. We use it to hammer in nails," followed by several hammer-banging noises.

I freeze, and in my head I can hear my brother humming that Friday-the-13th music and I imagine the audience in the movie theater yelling "WHY DOESN'T SHE JUST RUN TO THE NEIGHBOR'S HOUSE AND CALL THE POLICE?"

But I'm frozen, and I wouldn't dare bother the neighbors at 2 a.m., and so I just stand there and yell, "Who's there?" (As if a massacrist would answer, "Oh, it's just me -- JASON -- here to launch this hammer at your head.")

So I just stand there trying to figure out what to do and it finally dawns on me that the sound is quite similar to the sound my toddler's Home Depot truck makes when you push buttons on its dashboard. And maybe, just maybe, the toy got wet in yesterday's rain and the little voice chip got stuck or something rational like that.

And so my heart slows down a teensy bit and I decide to make a run for the back door. As I'm digging through my pocket for my keys, I hear the sudden loud voice again -- "This is a saw. We use it to saw wood" -- followed by sawing noises. I scream and drop my keys.

And the audience in my head is yelling, "JUST GO!"

And I manage to get the keys in the door and as I trip over the threshold, I hit the panic button on my car keys, which makes my car horn beep extremely loudly and all the lights flash on and off for what seems like an eternity.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the neighbor's bedroom light come on, and a few seconds later, the doorbell rings and it's a policeman "just checking" because the neighbor thought something funny might be going on. (The patrol car bubbles are flashing red and blue, and bedroom lights are coming on in windows up and down the street.)

And so I tell the whole story to the policeman -- all about the horror movie and the imagined audience and the Home Depot truck and everything -- and he stares at me like I'm nuts.

"No really," I say, hoping for leniency, "I work nights at the New York Times. See, here's my ID." And he takes my ID, and turning it over to examine every possible side, says, "Well, that explains everything, now doesn't it?"

As he was walking back to his car, I thought of yelling out, "Hey, officer! Did you know that Friday the 13th was filmed at a camp in NEW JERSEY?" But I decided it would be better to keep quiet.

April 30, 2003

The Day I Became a Journalist

The morning of Jan. 28, 1986, I was walking across the University of South Carolina campus on my way to photography class. This was a long walk -- 20 minutes -- and even longer when I took the time to stop at the Library’s fountain and watch the cascading water, which I often did.

That morning, I photographed water drops shooting through the air against the brilliant backdrop of a clear January sky. Surrounded by students, but alone on my walk, I was oblivious to the fact that the space shuttle Challenger was preparing to launch into the sky over Cape Canaveral.

A senior majoring in advertising, I had a clear plan for graduation and job prospects looked good. Intense advertising team projects promised to keep me extremely busy that semester; photography was designed to be my easy A.

In the heart of a bustling state capital where space was tight, the art school’s photography classes were held in an old house. Small rooms with bricked-over windows had been converted to dark rooms and labs. The one large classroom doubled as a portrait studio. Lamps with attached white umbrellas and room-darkening shades on the windows helped create an atmosphere of professionalism there, despite the creaky floor and old wooden desks.

The notion that the class would be an easy A quickly dissolved on the first day of class only a few weeks before. When class began, Chris Robinson, our professor, announced, “If you came here thinking this would be an easy A, you might as well leave right now.” Pointing, he added, “There’s the door.”

I learned that he was serious when I investigated grades from previous semesters. There were very few A's.

I enjoyed taking pictures, though, and with each assignment, hoped the professor would like my pictures as much as I did.

Unfortunately, Professor Robinson always seemed to find something wrong: too dark; too light; the composition was too crowded; the subject wasn’t appropriate for the assigned project. Comments on the first three assignments included “do it over,” “burn these,” “shoot something else instead.”

But I found myself learning to appreciate the fact that he demanded near-perfection because it inspired me to do the best I could do. That’s what makes a good teacher good.

Eager to get to the photo lab in time to develop my water-shooting-through-the-sky image before class that Tuesday morning, I walked faster than usual. Little did I know that the photograph would be oddly similar to pictures on the front page of every newspaper in the nation the next day.

When time came for class to begin, the rest of the students filed in one by one, sat in their usual desks and waited for the professor. Around 11:35, we began asking one another, “How long do we have to wait for professors to show up? Is 20 minutes long enough?”

When Professor Robinson finally walked into the classroom, I could tell something was dreadfully wrong. His head hung low, the belt of his coat dragged along behind him as he creaked across the floor. Slouching against the teacher’s desk at the front of the room, he made eye contact with no one, and covered his face with his arm. A student cautiously asked if he was O.K. He looked up, and turning his head to the darkened window, said quietly, “The shuttle exploded.”

I don’t think any student in the class instantly knew what he was talking about. The space program had long since faded from network news and despite a flurry of coverage for this particular mission, most of the students in this photography class were art students, and not much interested in current events. The professor looked at us, and sensing our ignorance, repeated, “The space shuttle -- Challenger -- it exploded during liftoff. The astronauts, they’re gone.” And then he melted into sobs.

He cried intensely, the way you do when you’ve just learned someone close to you has died. Confused and scared, we began asking questions.

Through a deeply emotional discussion, we learned that our professor was connected to NASA’s Citizen-Observer Participant Program. He had even undergone astronaut training and had been granted on-site access to launches and landings.

NASA had devised the plan to send citizens to space in 1983 in an effort to build broader public support for the space program. The first person chosen for a mission was Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire high school history teacher, and she was on board Challenger that day.

As one of the few artists involved in the program who was also interested in space travel, Professor Robinson said he would have been a likely candidate for a future mission.

I contacted him recently to learn what he recalled about that day, now that 17 years have passed. “I remember so clearly our administrative assistant telling me the Challenger had blown up,” he said, “and my total shock and disbelief.”

He continued, “It was emotional to me in its effect on our national pride, the future of the program, my investment of work, and,” he added, “I could envision having been in that seat.”

We stayed in our classroom for hours that day, skipping later classes, compelled to listen to our professor’s story. We all cried for the seven crew members, including Christa McAuliffe, who were killed when their shuttle exploded shortly after launching. And we understood with new clarity that these brave souls were heroes on a bold exploration of space.

That night I watched with fellow students as the explosion replayed over and over on television: the Challenger breaking up against the backdrop of a clear blue sky.

For the first time in my life, I appreciated the sacrifices people were making in the name of human advancement and I realized something about myself. By knowing someone who was personally connected with the biggest news story of my adult life to date, I felt an intense need to understand what went wrong, and an intense desire to be part of a team that would explain it for everyone else.

My complacency toward current events disappeared that day and I knew a career in advertising would never be enough.

Epilogue: On Saturday morning, Feb. 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia exploded only 15 minutes before its scheduled landing time, killing all seven astronauts on board. As a visual journalist for The New York Times, I spent the entire day doing research for diagrams that would appear in the newspaper on Sunday.

Chris Robinson is still a professor at the University of South Carolina and views the arts as a way of communicating complex science and technology concepts to the general public. He is shown above at a laser demonstration at the S.C. State Museum.

Julie Walton Shaver