Tag: love

family

Fill in the Blank

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From June 2011 —

*****

I laughed aloud the other day when I heard a quote from Sartre — “Hell is other people.”  I don’t necessarily agree with it, but it made me laugh.  Sometimes dealing with people is hard.

My sister, who works in a church, once told me, “Ministry would be fun — if it weren’t for the people.”

Last night I found myself thinking, “Parenting would be fun — if it weren’t for the kids.”

You could go all sorts of places with this quote — just fill in the blank.

(blank) would be fun if it weren’t for the (blank).

A teacher might say, “Teaching would be fun if weren’t for the students.”

An RN might say, “Nursing would be fun if it weren’t for the patients.”

A retail salesperson might say, “This store would be fun if it weren’t for the shoppers.”

And so on.

Last night, Laurel couldn’t sleep.  There was a storm earlier in the evening.  But I don’t think that was what caused her insomnia.  The next day was going to be a busy day and I think she was anxious about it.  The problem was that I was tired.  I wanted just a few minutes to myself.  My compassion was very low.

Finally, after I snapped at her unkindly, she came to bed with me.  Parenting would be fun if it weren’t for these darn kids.

In the middle of the night I rolled over and found myself face to face with Chim-chim, her stuffed monkey.  She was hugging him in her sleep and I hadn’t even noticed that she had him when she came into bed.  Her monkey did a better job comforting her than I did.

Beyond the monkey I saw a little girl just trying to deal with life.

My heart melted.

Being a kid would be fun if it weren’t for the parents.

For the record, hell isn’t other people.

And being a parent can be heaven.

*****

Note from 2016: Draft folder rescue — this was first written 5 years ago. I briefly published it, but then took it down. I didn’t want anyone to misinterpret what I was saying. Parenting is incredibly fun — because of the kids. Sometimes parents just get a little tired.

Today’s note (July 9, 2016) — I took this post down not long after I published it THE SECOND TIME. Today it showed up when I searched “insomnia” which is the RDP prompt word of the day.

For whatever reason, it strikes a nerve and some people find it offensive. Let’s see how long it lasts this go-round.

Faith · family · Life

Growing Pains

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The RDP prompt for today is kindness. I searched my draft folder and found this incomplete post that had been written in October 2011.

When I read it this morning, I remembered some of the difficult circumstances of that time. It was years before my brother died, years before I was helping care for my mother, years and years before my father died.

Just because I wasn’t dealing with death, it doesn’t mean life was easy. I had my hands full in other ways. My children at that point ranged in age from 7 to 26. I was homeschooling two, had one in public school, some in college, some working, one married.

Without further ado, here is the unnamed post which I will call “Growing Pains.” If it feels incomplete, maybe it is.

One of the most profound things I heard Andrew Peterson say was not at Hutchmoot, but at a concert in Cortland.  He was talking about his books, the Wingfeather Saga. (Note: he was still in the process of writing the series. The final book wasn’t published until 2014.)  I didn’t write this down or record it so it may not be verbatim, but I think it’s fairly close.  He said,

The main character in these stories is a boy named Janner.  When I started writing, I saw the man he would become, but I knew that he would have to go through many trials and difficult situations to become that man.  I knew that he would have to suffer some terrible things…

I have been thinking about some of the difficulties my own children have had to endure.  They are rather small in comparison to Janner’s battles with Fangs and Gnag the Nameless, but they shape my children nonetheless.

And then I started thinking about that whole idea conversely.  If my children didn’t suffer anything, how would they turn out?

For instance, in order to develop perseverance, they need to stick with difficult situations and work them out.  If I allow them to quit every time the going was hard or not fun or required something of them, they would become the kind of adults who always take the easy path, who quit, who are unreliable.

In order for them to develop compassion, they need experience some hard times and also experience unwarranted kindness to them.  I imagine that the guy in the Good Samaritan story who had been attacked by robbers didn’t later cross to the other side of the road to avoid helping someone who was different from him, although without his experience, he may very well have looked the other way instead of helping.

To develop patience, they need some annoyances.

To develop peace, they need some turmoil.

family · Grief · Life

Terrible

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The RDP prompt for today is twelve. I searched my draft folder and found this incomplete post that had last been edited in February 2016. My mother died in November 2015. I wrote so many posts following her death. I think it was my way of untangling the knot—and it helped.

This post was never completed. When I read it this morning, a flood of memories engulfed me.

Here’s the post which I called “Terrible.” At the end, I’ll try to complete it — though the 10 intervening years surely have changed where I was going with the original.

THE ORIGINAL

The one nurse said, “Well, I guess you’ve never seen a dying person before.”

She was matter-of-fact. Tart. A little smug. Definitely too cheerful.

The other nurse was different. Compassionate. Caring. Gentle.

“Can I do anything for you?” she asked every time she checked on my mother. “Can I get you anything?”

With twelve hour shifts for the nurses, we mostly saw only these two.

When I would ask the first nurse

THE 2026 COMPLETION

When I would ask the first nurse for anything, she did her job, but with so little compassion that I ended up avoiding her. Truth be told, today I can’t even picture her.

Forgettable — that’s what she was. I’m glad I didn’t spend time dwelling on her.

What I remember about my mother’s final hospital stay are definitely the kindnesses:

The other nurse bringing food in for us.

The doctor who called a family meeting. She began with these words, “Mom is very sick, and she isn’t going to get better.” She went on to talk about the fact that modern medicine could keep her alive, but we should think about what was best for her. One of my brothers still refers to her as “the doctor that told us to kill Mom.” It’s that dark famiy sense of humor that we have. I have no doubt in my mind that it was the right decision.

A group of women from the church came to the hospital room and sang to my mother. They had all been in the choir with her, and now they sang for her. It still brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. Out-of-tune warbly voices of older women joined in some of the most beautiful music I’ve heard.

My siblings and I gathered around the bed, each telling my mother that we loved her. My youngest brother told my mother that it was okay for her to go. I had heard that it can be important to say that, and he said it, all the while rubbing her foot as he stood at that end of the bed.

I feel pity for that nurse whom I had labeled “Terrible.” Her words, I guess you’ve never seen a dying person before, are so hollow.

I don’t know what prompted them, but today, I would take her hands in mine, and say, “I hope that some day, you can gather with your family around the bed of someone you love very much, and you can be with them when they pass. It’s a beautiful thing.”

Terrible vs. beautiful. I’ll remember the beautiful.

Blather · Life

Crazy Little Thing

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Twice a week for the past few months I’ve been leading a walking workout up on the track at the facility where I work. The walking workout is for our seniors, and my goal is to get them to walk for 30 minutes. We do it on Mondays and Thursdays. I’ve got a small but dedicated group that attend.

Here’s how it works: I make a playlist and assign exercises to go with the different songs. We do grapevine, or side-steps, or bicep curls with weights while walking, etc. We even walk backwards, which is great for balance!

On Thursday of this week, I decided to look for love songs with an upbeat tempo for my playlist. The warm-up song was “Walking on Sunshine.” Afterwards, one of the ladies told me that was one of her favorites. “It’s the song I used to use as the first song when I would go running,” she said.

She doesn’t run anymore, but she be-bopped around the track and sang along as she did. It made me smile.

Now, as I explained, I have the walkers do different things while walking. I’ve tried having them do lunges (only four at a time!) which isn’t popular. I had them balance something on their head while walking. (I thought it might help with posture.) I thought about having them walk backwards and toss a football to a forward-walking walker who then would have to walk backwards — but it seemed complicated and I wasn’t sure if the idea was workable.

For the second song on Thursday, though, I tried out a new cock-a-mamie ideas.

The song was The Proclaimers’ song “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” (see below). I wanted them to try walking at the same pace as someone else. I explained that when I was taking care of my father, one of the hardest things for me to do was to walk at his pace. I also explained that it was a drill I used to use occasionally when I coached swimming where I had the swimmers try to swim in synchrony with another swimmer. I’m not sure that it made them faster, but it did make them aware that they were not the only person in the world, which is a better life skill than being a fast swimmer.

Anyway, I explained this to my walkers and then I watched them as they tried to walk in step with someone else. The more I watched, the more I thought about my father and how hard it was to walk with him through those last years but how he had set the example by walking with my mother through her last years.

Mom and Dad — 2015

I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything.

The next song that came up was Queen singing “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” We did the grapevine to it.

In my head I was still back at how walking with another person at their pace is an act of love. I would walk 500 miles like that. Crazy little thing called love.


This is my response to Linda Hill’s Stream-of-Consciousness Saturday prompt: Love..

family · Writing

A Large Family

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Don’t get me started.

Family size is a personal decision.

I can’t tell you the number of rude things that have been said to me because of the number of children I have. I have eight.

“When are you going to stop?” — said to me by a woman at church when I was pregnant with #4. She later said to me after that baby was born — a daughter after three sons, “You got your girl, thank God. You can stop now.”

Another woman told me, “You have too many children.” This was when I had, I think, six. I responded by asking, “Which one should I get rid of?” I received no answer.

I haven’t gone to high school reunions, in large part because I didn’t want to spend my evening answering questions about my family size. That — plus the fact that while my classmates went on to pursue careers, I chose to be a stay-at-home mom. I didn’t really want to spend an evening at reunion answering the question, “What do you do?”

I chose to be a mom.

And it was, without a doubt, the right choice for me. It shaped me. It allowed me to be creative and loving and strong. I developed patience. I learned that I LOVE taking care of people.

So much so that I took care of my parents, too.

Did I resent doing that? Never. Not even for half a second.

Now, while my age-cohort is retiring, I’m just a few years into my first full-time job since 1984.

I have an office where I work. People stop in a lot to say hi, to talk, to complain, to suggest. I have an open door. Just the other day I was telling someone how being a mom prepared me for the constant interruptions of having an open-door policy in my office. When you’re a mom, you learn that your interruptions ARE your work. The same is true for me today.

A man stopped in my office yesterday. He often pokes his head in to say hello. He was a caregiver for his disabled wife the last few years of her life. He used to bring her to the gym and wheel her around in her wheelchair so she could have contact with other people.

Then she died.

And it turns that by coming to the gym he was building his own support system. He comes every day — not to work out so much as to visit with people. He makes the rounds, and I’m on them.

Anyway, he poked his head in, chatted about nothing, and then asked about my necklace. My youngest daughter gave it to me and I always wear it.

It has three discs: one that’s a tree, and two progressively larger ones with the names of my children around the edge. When you have a large family, you have to be creative about mother’s jewelry.

I explained the necklace to him.

“You have eight children,” he said incredulously.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Did you adopt some?”

“No.”

“Did you have twins or triplets?”

“No,” I told, “they were born one at a time.”

I turned around to grab the photo I have of them on my bulletin board.

“There’re all adults now,” I said, showing him the photo.

“You have eight children?!”

“Yes, this is them,” I said.

He was shaking his head. “You have eight children?!?!”

“Yes –”

He was backing out of the doorway. I was feeling rattled and small and angry and sad.

“You have eight children?” he said again. “I need to process this.”

“I’m still the same person you’ve been talking to for a year,” I called after him, but I don’t think he heard me.

Don’t get me started.

There are so many things that can define a person. Mistakes made while young. How they invested their life over the past four decades. What they are doing today.

I have eight children. They are amazing people and I’m so proud of them.

Really. Don’t get me started.

This overly-wordy post is my response to the Stream-of-Consciousness prompt: don’t get me started.

Linda Hill got me started on a rant.

Alzheimer's · family

Where the Wild Things Are

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Partly because Sam just sent me this awesome collage postcard from Hawaii:

Is that me waving from the surf?
Is that me waving from the surf?

And partly because the Fenimore Art Museum recently announced that in April they are opening an exhibit called:
50 Years, 50 Works, 50 Reasons. Maurice Sendak: The Memorial Exhibition

And partly because the word of the day is “lovingly” and this post has that word in it —

I’m reposting something I wrote in May 2012.

As a side note — I DO do New York City now, very sparingly. By bus.

When I stopped to see my mother on Tuesday, she was in New York City.  Well, not literally, but, they were having another travelogue for the residents.  Instead of Hawaii, however, this week’s destination was New York City.

I don’t do New York City.  Every time I’ve driven someone to JFK, I’ve gotten lost, not getting there, but getting out.  I’ve ended up in downtown Manhattan on more occasions that I care to think about.  I am a country bumpkin through and through.  I don’t do big roads.  I don’t do big cities.

But my mother was in New York City in the safety and comfort of  The Manor.  Maybe I could handle that.

Anyway, I didn’t get to see her.  My kids said, “She won’t know the difference anyway.”

Maybe that’s true, but I know the difference.

Since Maurice Sendak died, I’ve been thinking about Where the Wild Things Are.  Little Max is so naughty that his mother calls him a wild thing.  He’s not even remotely contrite about his naughtiness, yelling at his mother, “I’ll eat you up!” So she sends him to his room.

And off he goes, not only to his room, but to where the wild things are, and where he’s king, and where there are wild rumpuses and such.  But he wants to be where someone loves him best of all.

Can you picture his mother tiptoeing into his room, after all his naughtiness?  No, wait, backtrack even further.  Can you picture his mother lovingly preparing a tray of food for him, things that smell good and are good to eat, making sure they are both delicious and hot?

She tiptoes into his room, but he’s not aware of it because he’s off where the wild things are.  She leaves him a tray of food, a tray that says I’ll always love you.

She didn’t do all that so that Max would see the tray and say, “Wow, my mother loves me.”  She did it because she loved him.

That’s what I want my children to know.  I don’t go visit my mother because she’ll understand.  I go because I understand, and because I love her.

So I stopped in to see my mother the other day, but she was off where the wild things are — New York City.  I should have left her a tray of food.

And it was still hot.

 

A to Z Blogging Challenge

Yuck

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A few weeks ago I babysat my grandson and got to change his diaper.

When I first became the mother to a little boy, my mother had warned me to not leave a boy uncovered too long. Beware the fountain of youth. You know.

Even with that sage advice, my oldest son squirted me right in the face shortly after I brought him home from the hospital. I learned to get everything ready before the big reveal so I could be quick and cover it up in a jiffy if I needed.

With my grandson, I was prepared. I had my method down. Get the wipes ready. Unfold the new diaper. Take a deep breath, then take off the wet diaper.

Of course, he nailed me. In spite of. And laughing all the while.

I think this ritual of male creatures marking their territory starts very young.

PICT0853Cleaning bodily fluids is the yuck of motherhood.

Changing diapers.

Wiping noses.

Cleaning vomit.

Dressing battle wounds of wars fought with siblings or sidewalks.

It’s in those most intimate, personal, yucky moments that love takes root and grows.

My friend’s house became a crime scene when her husband was murdered there. A group of women went to the house and scrubbed the blood off the floor. Men patched the bullet holes in the wall. Cleaning the yuck became an act of love.

Jesus washed His disciples’ dirty feet on the night He was betrayed.

And Joseph of Arimathea wrapped His body — head bloody from the crown of thorns, hands and feet pierced by nails, his side opened with a spear — Joseph wrapped that bloody body in a linen cloth and laid him in a tomb.

The yuck of love.

In more ways than one.

Caring for aging parents is such a privilege. Laundering soiled garments, gently bathing fragile folds of flesh, cleaning unmentionables, because, you know, we are cultured and couth.

Those are the sacramental moments of life.

The farmers have been spreading the manure on the nearby fields this week. The aroma fills the air. Yuck.

But when the alfalfa grows, lush and green, nutrient rich because of the timely application of poo — we forget the yuck.

So it is with children.

And aging parents.

 

 

A to Z Blogging Challenge · poetry

Windchimes

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DSC05667“I wish your mother could see those windchimes,”
my father said,
looking at the green butterflies
and brass bells.

Their gentle tinkle
was beyond his hearing
like my mother was beyond …
I don’t know.

Beyond the day
when he could repay
for late nights
and house calls
and meetings
and reserve duty
and patients calling
and dinner waiting
and waiting
and waiting
for him to be home

She always had to share him
with the sick
the poor
the destitute

and with other physicians
and administrators
and nurses
and important folk
who received the same courtesy
as the unimportant

My mother may have felt
that she came last

So he bought the windchimes
last summer
and hung them
in the myrtle
where the gentlest breeze
could flutter through
and make
a plinkle-chinkle-tinkle
barely audible
wings brushing bells

My mother closed her eyes
from weariness
a few miles
and lifetimes
away

At the end
she had to know
that she was
always
first
as he spooned
the ice cream
into her mouth
and told her
that he loved her
time
and
again

the butterflies
could never speak
so clearly

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Alzheimer's

Vulnerable

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“Fred” made the mistake of saying the words “crew cut” within hearing of the man with the clippers.

“Everybody has a bad haircut story,” I told him. “Now you have yours.”

What made the whole thing ironic is that “Fred” had just been to a conference from which he took away the importance of vulnerability.

“Failure is an event, not a person,” he told me, repeating a Zig Ziglar quote one of the speakers had used.

“Exactly,” I said, pointing to his head.

Every disaster, whether large or small, brings us to a crossroads. One path pretends the problem never happened and hides the challenge from all the other travelers. The other path is vulnerability and sharing the struggle.

My mother taught me the importance of vulnerability. I remember watching her after her breast cancer surgery. She had a full radical mastectomy back in the days when the plastic surgeons weren’t inserting inflatable boobs even before the radiation treatments.

Her prosthesis was external, a little mass of weighted jell that fit into her bra.

Which she got tired of and did without after some years.

My mother was not defined by her breasts.

Or her breast cancer.

She went to visit women who had had mastectomies before they left the hospital and faced the world.

“This does not define you,” she told them.

And she lived, a walking testament to life after breast cancer.

That open-ness, that vulnerability, helped me to start writing about her and her Alzheimer’s.

I think if she had fully understood, if her brain had not been fogged by dementia, she would freely given her blessing to the whole thing.

“Write about the incontinence,” she would have said. “Maybe it will help somebody else going through the same thing.”

She would laugh and say, “Write about that time when I tried to walk the two miles into town because no one would believe me that I needed to go to a meeting.” I walked with her, and Helen came to pick us up.

“Write about the funny things I said. And how you had to show me that underwear went on first, before the pants. Write about the marmalade.”

It’s not dishonoring to use tough situations so that others know they are not alone in what they are experiencing.

Quite the opposite.

It is most honoring.

I think she would be pleased.

Making the sandwich #1
Mom and her marmalade