"BEWARE The Organ Meats........"

All of my friends, colleagues and acquaintances were so thoughtful and caring as they bid me farewell for this journey I’m on. Some were even gracious enough to hide their doubts about my sanity when I told them exactly where I was going. But there was this one editor at NPR whose daughter was doing a semester of coursework in Kampala, so he was excited when I told him I was headed to Uganda. Then I told him I would be living in Northern Uganda.

He spent the next 20 minutes sharing everything he knew about the bloodshed, terror, refugee camps, rape and torture that were the norm up north. I interjected every now and then to say that the way the world is today, you could get slaughtered sitting in a university classroom in Virginia.

He suggested it was rather STOOPID of me to compare the tragedy at Virginia Tech to Northern Uganda. For one thing, he said, those students and teachers didn’t voluntarily go into an area heavily-populated by well-armed, crazed murderers. I thanked him for his observations and muttered a few curses under my breath when he finally finished his oral history of the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Actually, I couldn’t blame him for my anger. Mainly, I was pissed because I was living a lie of sorts. You see, I hadn’t yet told my sister Julie exactly where I was going in Uganda. I’d been so pleased that she hadn’t completely freaked when I told her I’d be spending 8 months working with Internews in Uganda, and that I was flying to Kampala on June 5th.

She’d come a long way from April of 2003, when I’d told her I was headed to Accra, Ghana to teach my very first weeklong journalism workshop. “You know I worry about your immune system,” she’d wailed. “You’ll go over there and catch some parasite that will kill you instantly. You’ll get malaria. You’ll get mauled by a rogue orangutan.”

She didn’t actually say that last thing, but Julie had a whole arsenal of other reasons why going to Africa was a dumb idea. Bottom line, she was absolutely scared to death, and willing to stop at nothing to make me change my mind.

Maybe I need to explain why Julie’s buy-in on these types of life decisions matters so much to me. You see, Julie is the 3rd of my 9 siblings, the eldest girl. By the time she was old enough to hold a dish towel, Julie was helping my mother raise babies. The last four of us were girls, so Julie wound up being our adjunct mother. She was the one who combed our hair, and dressed us, and fed us, and made sure we behaved. She was also the one we all used to climb into bed with and watch TV or just hang out, because we always felt safe and warm and secure with her.

By the time I was 9 years old, I had 3 crucial role models: Doris Day, Mary Tyler Moore and Julie. Doris came first, because she was so beautiful and sweet and funny and smart. Plus, she managed to keep her legs crossed around the powerful masculine force of nature that was Rock Hudson. (Makes sense 50 years later; she had a bit more information than the rest of us did.) Anyhoo, Doris was the ultimate “Good Girl,” the embodiment of what a career woman should be, I thought. Always perfectly dressed and coiffed, supremely confident yet demure and vulnerable when necessary. And girlfriend was spunky as hell.

Which leads us to Mary Tyler Moore. She’s the reason I’m prone to shopaholic tendencies to this day. (Well, there are also certainly hereditary neuronal misfires in the roiling genetic stew of my familial DNA that may also be factors, but you don’t need those gory details just yet.) Anybody over the age of 40 remembers actually watching the premier episode of the MTM show, when Mary blusters her way through an interview with gruff old Lou Grant, who eventually tells her, “You got spunk. I HATE spunk.”

Mary Richards was the ultimate clotheshorse. I drooled over her perfectly coordinated outfits, her peppy shoulder bags and matching shoes, and her hip, happenin’ hairstyles. I loved her quirky sense of humor, and the way everybody loved Mary. And when Mary got a reputation for throwing parties that ALWAYS flopped, she completely stole my heart. The Divine Miss Richards had a flaw, and yet people STILL adored her. And best of all, Mary Richards managed to pull off the amazing feat of being beautiful, popular, funny, and charming, and yet you always got the impression that she didn’t really see herself that way.

That leads me to Julie. At age 19, she was about 90 pounds of pure pretty, inside and out. So tiny that at age 9, I was almost able to wear her clothes and shoes. (A few years later, I actually did start sneaking into her closet after she left for work to wear her clothes and shoes. And even when I finally got busted, she didn’t slap the shit out of me. Now THAT’S true big sister love.)

Julie had the face of a pixie, and a perfect little figure, and she was smart, funny, and strong. Hell, she’d raised just about all of her younger siblings, so she had no other choice. And she was popular. Guys wanted to date her, but that ritualistic, shame-based mind control we were raised under (previously referred to as “Midwestern Values”) made her decline all offers. I think it’s because she didn’t realize what a beautiful young woman she was.

I’ve talked about this often enough, so I’m hoping she won’t mind me sharing it. Julie had the chance to leave Cairo, Illinois for good when she was around 19. Her friend Claudia wanted Julie to move with her to Texas, get a job, or go to school, or do ANYTHING besides just stagnate in Cairo. It was the late 60’s, and the whole world was opening up for a beautiful, smart, articulate, strong young black woman. If she’d been a different kind of person, Julie might have jumped at the chance.

But she couldn’t leave her four little sisters behind. Sure, maybe she was scared to take the leap, or maybe she knew something about Claudia that made her leery of hitching up with her. But Julie always says, and I believe her, that she turned down Claudia’s offer because she didn’t want to leave us behind.

In the 37 years since she made that decision, Julie’s faced challenges that would have destroyed other people. She was diagnosed with lupus, she lost a child, she’s had a myriad life threatening surgeries. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve sat by her bed in hospitals, fiercely bargaining, pleading with, and threatening God to keep her alive. She worked almost 40 years with the Cairo Public School District before she retired last year, and she’s traveled all over the country representing the National Education Association. And Julie has pulled my ass out of the fire so many times, it’s a wonder she had time left to do any of it.

She's so damned STRONG. When I told her about my first trip to Africa, my whole family was already gobsmacked by grief at the recent death of the family's firstborn icon, our eldest brother David. (I’ll write more about him some day.) My going to Africa seemed like just one more potentially devastating loss, and so I understood why she didn’t want me to go. I went anyway.

4 years later, both my parents have died, too, and I don’t think I’ll ever truly get a handle on the whole "coping with loss" thing. And when I told Julie I was gonna spend 8 months in Uganda, I half expected her to blow her top, have a stroke, or tell me I was being a selfish bitch by putting her through such worry and stress. (THAT’S why I told her I was going to Kampala, and left out the other details.)

Did I forget to mention that when I shared my travel plans, it was about a year after Julie had been diagnosed with colon cancer, undergone emergency surgery, been given a clean bill of health, come to DC to celebrate her first cancer free year, and then wound up in Georgetown Hospital again with dangerously low potassium? By the time I told her about Kampala, she was back home safely in Cairo, but I was down to my last nerve worrying about her health. I was torn between wanting to have this experience, and agonizing over being so far away from her.

Julie was so supportive, I could have wept. (Granted, this was based on false information, but you do what you gotta do.) No more guilt-trips, no more threats of physical violence if I ignored her concerns. She actually thought it was a great opportunity for me. Of course, when she found out I was in Gulu, just a few days after I arrived, she sent me an e-mail which kind of hinted that she wanted to kick my ass for not being straight up with her. But even then, Julie hid her anxiety with a bit of humor.

By this point, you’re probably wondering why the hell I titled this post, “BEWARE the Organ Meats....” Stay with me, there’s a connection. The first time I called Julie after getting settled in Gulu, I must have spent 20 minutes in my newly-adopted role as spokesperson for the Greater Gulu Chamber of Commerce. I had to convince her I was safe, warm and dry, and well-fed. I told her about this great little restaurant called “Take Away,” which serves amazingly delicious savory stews, fabulous lentil soup, and fresh vegetables. Why, just that day, I’d had this fantastic kidney stew with green beans, tomatoes, and other yummy vegetables.

Julie’s response? “I think you should stay away from organ meats. You know how I worry about your immune system.”

It makes me smile, every time I think about it. Julie could have said, “Listen, you better enjoy that food now, cause when the Lord’s Resistance Army gets a hold of you, they’ll be eating a stew made from YOUR stupid-assed kidneys!” But once again, she was being a trooper, hiding her naked, quivering fear for my safety, and offering calm, measured advice.

It’s the kind of advice that only a role model, adjunct-mother, fiercely strong survivor, and fountain of unconditional love can offer. None of my other “so-called” friends have cared enough to warn me about the potentially deadly hazards of organ meats. I’m blessed to have Julie in my corner.

(But I’m still gonna eat that kidney stew, as often as I can wrap my lips around it. Sorry…at 45, it’s about time I cut the apron strings.)