Graceful

January 21, 2017 Sally6 Comments

The word prompt was “graceful.”

I debated about using photos of my children in sports.

Swimming, tennis, soccer, and diving all have their graceful moments.

Aviary Photo_130563787939035300 — graceful kick?

I also have little ballerina pictures. Ballerinas are the embodiment of grace.

The very last first time ballet recital for Laurel -- which also turned out to be the very last ballet recital for Laurel. — Mine is the one trying to curtsey.

But I knew immediately which photo spoke grace to me. The trouble was finding it.

It was a picture of my father taking care of my mother.

He visited her every day. Twice a day. He fed her. He pushed her wheelchair on walks.

5501_10152261695866043_678688786_n — or even this one

This was after my brother passed away. He went to tell her the news that her oldest child had died of a heart attack. Because of her dementia, she couldn’t understand, and he had to repeat the painful words over and over. It broke my heart. His grief was doubled because she was unable to share it.

But her bore it.

The graceful picture I thought of was this one. It may not be the best picture, but it was a special moment.

My mother was in the hospital and my father brushed her hair for her.

Mothers brush other people’s hair all the time — sometimes even adding a little spit to do the trick. Of course, I never did that — added spit, I mean.

But this was new territory for my father. He was a little clumsy doing it. But he wanted her to be cared for, and he wanted to be the one to do it.

So he did the best he could to brush her wayward hair into place.

And it was an act that was full, very full, of grace.

family · Leaning In · Life

Weathered

January 20, 2017January 20, 2017 Sally7 Comments

Walk around the barn with me.

The side facing the road is red, the traditional color of many barns. My mother painted the Peace Dove around 40 years ago on a sheet of plywood. Bud found it in the barn this fall and decided to hang it for the holidays.

The northern side bears remnants of the red. Also a few broken windows.

And a tree with a cool twisty trunk.

The messy back side is a mish-mash of red, green (discolored plywood), and black, where the silo used to stand.

Here is what remains of the old silo — metal bands and wooden staves becoming one with the earth.

The southern side is all gray, discolored in the one corner where a truck cap leaned against it for years.

I think this side is the prettiest.

I took a picture of it during the summer just because I liked the way it looked.

It’s lovely, don’t you think?

Exposure to the elements and weather brings about changes — like the trials in our lives. We end up with some scars and a few broken parts.

But if we lean in, we might find some beauty there.

family · Life

Colorblind

January 17, 2017 Sally3 Comments

pict1161 — The way you can tell which of these boys isn’t my brother is the Yankees shirt. No one in my family would dare to wear such a thing.

My parents did a good job raising colorblind children in a lily-white town. I never heard either of them make any kind of racist statement. Instead I watched both of them operate from a platform of compassion toward all people.

Every summer for a number of years my parents invited Fresh-Air children from New York City to stay with us for a week or two. Honestly, what made Hector and Barbara different from me wasn’t the color of their skin. Rather it was their experiences as city kids.

We had a garden and a menagerie. We caught frogs in the pond during the day and fireflies in the yard at night. We could see the stars.

Barbara and I shared my room. We lay in bed at night and talked. She missed her mom and her mother’s food the same as I would have missed my mom and her cooking.

The battle for middle-class America isn’t about seeing or not seeing the color of the skin. It’s about understanding the similarities and differences of our experiences.

At our Sunday worship service before MLKJr Day, a woman talked about her experiences in the late 60s – early 70s when she, a white woman, was married to a black man. Her husband, college-educated and employed, some days was quite late getting home because police prevented from entering his own neighborhood simply because of the color of his skin. She spoke about “white privilege” — something we white folks can’t see because we live it.

In Cooperstown, I remember watching both white and black baseball players inducted into the Hall of Fame. Arrogance comes in all colors. But so does humility and friendliness.

My two favorite ball players that I met when I worked at the Hall of Fame — Cool Papa Bell and Ernie Banks — were both black. I don’t know a single one of their statistics, but I remember their smiles and the way they made me feel.

Jackie Robinson is one of my father’s heroes. When I read his story, it made me cry. Such indignity in the way he was treated. Such strength in his response.

But I ramble.

I hope I have passed on to my children what was given to me — eyes that don’t see skin color. It can’t stop there, though.

Now we need to understand the difference of our experiences.

We’re making progress.

But we still have a long way to go.

elderly · family · Life

Misunderstood

January 12, 2017 Sally3 Comments

scn_0001-2 I found a little notebook that my mother probably kept in her purse in the mid-to-late-1980s. The notes inside cover a huge span of topics:

She even wrote a cheat sheet for my husband’s siblings. He has eight brothers and four sisters, so she wrote out their names and little reminders to help her keep them straight. I should have been so smart.

One note bothered me – partly because I couldn’t figure it out what she was trying to say, and partly because I have anxiety about doing things right for my father.

don’t do anything
you don’t tell them
Not recipes
Not checkbook

Helping elderly parents involves walking a fine line. On the one hand, I have a tremendous amount of respect, appreciation, and love for them, but on the other I sometimes need to take the reins.

The other day I took my father to get his haircut. When he was done, he fished his wallet out of his back pocket. He rifled through it with his fingers, pausing on a five dollar bill before looking at me questioningly.

“What do I need here?” he asked, and he pushed the wallet into my hands.

I handed the woman a twenty — the haircut cost $10 — and she gave back a five and five ones. I handed these to my father. “You need to decide how much you want to tip her,” I said.

It was awkward. She picked up the broom to start sweeping. He fanned out the money in his hand and fiddled around with the bills.

“What are you doing to me?” he said. Clearly he couldn’t think through the next step.

I felt terrible. I took some of the ones and handed them to the stylist.

But I wasn’t doing anything to him. I was trying to allow him some autonomy.

At home I’ve started paying some of his bills without discussing them with him. The bills are confusing for him, but cutting him out of the process feels wrong to me too.

don’t do anything
you don’t tell them
Not recipes
Not checkbook

The words in the notebook stung. I’m trying so hard to do right by him.

I have a futile hope that someday he’ll be able to do it all again. Will he understand why I took over?

I pulled out Mom’s notebook again and studied the rest of what was written on that page.

Screens –
monochrome – 1 color
get 80 columns
c/ monochrome monitor
not c/ T.V.
Color – expensive…

The next page had more computer-buying advice. Were these notes from an introductory computer seminar?

first
Buy Software ^ you
need — then Hardware
to go with it

Seriously?

But maybe those first lines, “don’t do anything you don’t tell them” refer to computers, and the fact that they are just machines.

But then, why “not recipes”?

Why “not checkbook”?

I’ll probably never know.

family · Leaning In · Life

Trapped

January 10, 2017April 21, 2017 Sally6 Comments

In the spirit of “Leaning In,” I offered to help my father write some letters.

During December I felt trapped, much the way a mother of a toddler feels. I remember being home with small children and wondering what it would be like to be able to do and go without worrying about other people. Now I sometimes feel that way again, but it’s not because of small children.

I had asked Laurel some of the same questions I asked Mary (see Explanation). Laurel knew how old I was. She also astutely answered the what’s-my-favorite-thing-to-do question. “You like alone-time,” she said — and I felt a little lump in my throat because she understood me so well.

Alone time. I crave it. Like chocolate. Or coffee.

When I was home with toddlers, I would retreat to the bathroom — and they would stand outside the door, talking to me, trying to get in, asking when I was coming out.

In December, my father would sometimes stand at the bottom of the stairs. “Sally? Sally? Are you going anywhere today? I’d like to go out,” he would say. And I would feel so selfish that I just wanted to go out alone. All. By. Myself.

With toddlers, sometimes they would follow me everywhere. “Fred” used to sit on my foot and hold onto my leg. I would hobble around, my steps uneven because I was dragging a little boy with me. He simply wanted to be with me. If I stopped to read with him or play with him, sometimes that would satisfy his Mom-time need, and, in turn, I would have a little alone time. In the kitchen. Woohoo.

Of course, I couldn't find a picture of Jacob hanging on my leg -- they do exist! -- but this him, the youngest at the time, at about the right age. — Of course, I couldn’t find a picture of “Fred” hanging on my leg — they do exist! — but this is him, the youngest at the time, at about the right age.

So — leaning in. I decided in 2017 that I wouldn’t try to escape, but would rather lean in. Embrace.

Instead of escaping upstairs, I asked my father if I could help him write a letter. He had been saying that he wanted to write to a few people, but, beyond the struggle of gathering thoughts into words, he also struggles with the fine motor coordination of writing.

Yesterday, we sat to “write.”

It took him a long time to formulate his thoughts, but his words revealed how trapped he felt, too. He told his friend why he couldn’t travel to visit her —

… I feel like I should accept the wisdom of the rest of my family that I should not drive a car. I agreed to this reluctantly, but there’s no way out.

No way out. What a terrible feeling.

He got frustrated with the writing process and we put the letter aside.

So today, we’ll finish that letter and get it in the mail.

And I’ll take him out with me.

It’s a lot slower running errands with a person with a walker.

Not unlike a child hanging on a leg.

Leaning In · Life

Delight

January 7, 2017 Sally3 Comments

It was a cold day — A cold day in upstate New York

Yesterday was a rush-rush day. I had too many things to do in the available hours.

Around 4:30 PM, I made a quick run into the grocery store. The wind was gusty and frigid as I dashed for the door.

In between the open doors a woman stood calling back over her shoulder, “Come ON!” The exasperation was clear in her voice. She pulled her coat tight around her, flipping up the lapels to block the wind.

As I got closer I could see who she was talking to. A little girl, maybe 4 or 5 years old, was in the estuarial space of warm and cold, the space where shopping carts and bottle return machines exist, between the two sets of automatic doors. She had her back to her mother, her hands over her head, fingers extended and wiggling. She crouched and wiggled her bottom a little before jumping up with excited squeals.

She was watching herself on an overhead monitor that showed all the people entering and exiting the store.

“She thinks she’s on tv,” her mother said to me, and rolled her eyes.

I laughed — delighted by the child’s delight. The girl continued her dance, crouching then jumping, waving her hands and arms, giggling and squealing all the while.

Her mother smiled back at me.

For just a moment the two of us watched together.

Then I went in, grabbed the groceries I needed, and headed for the check-out.

I was still smiling when it was my turn to pay.

I was still smiling when I got home.

Two observations I’d like to make:

Delight is contagious. I’m glad the little girl shared hers with me.
Leaning in and slowing down can be as simple as a momentary pause at the grocery store.