Holidays

I will be taking the next few weeks off and will be back at it in 2012.  I hope during this time you will look over some of the "old posts" you have not yet had an opportunity to read. Happy Holidays to all of you. Lillian Hunter

Gift Receiving?

My friend was sick with the flu and a back injury.  We typically walk our dogs together on Fridays and she had been unable to do that for more than a month.  I tried to send her some flowers but that darn internet made it impossible to find a local florist.  So I stopped by a local market that has wonderful flowers.  I had an arrangement prepared and I delivered it myself.  She wasn’t home but her husband was.  I dropped off the flowers with him and left as he was also sick.   Then it happened.  Dead silence.  Stupid things were going through my head like maybe she didn’t notice them or maybe her husband forgot to tell her they were from me. 

It amazes me in this day and age of easy and instant communication how we fail or refuse to communicate.  I never received a text, email or phone call from my friend acknowledging the flowers and/or thanking me for them.  I happened to run into her a few weeks later and she, looking a bit chagrined, told me she hadn’t texted me (no reason why) but she thanked me for the flowers.  It seemed almost like an afterthought.  If I hadn’t run into her would she have ever said, “thank you”. 

Well you might be saying that the giver should not expect anything in return as a true gift is given freely and without expectation.    I agree but I don’t think that extends to a simple thank you.

My feelings were hurt and I wondered as to her character or lack thereof.  For me there is no substitute for an immediate and heartfelt,”thank you".  That may be the best gift of all because it says I acknowledge you and I appreciate you and all you do for me.   The words are so simple but the meaning is so powerful.   .”  So in these days when we are frantically preparing to give gifts to our family and friends, let’s not forget to say, “thank you”   when we receive something.   It means so much. It strengthens our relationships while its absence weakens them.

Grief

I ran into the room half expecting that it wasn’t true.  The room was exactly as I had left it an hour or so earlier.  Brian was resting peacefully on the bed.  I had known for three years this day would come.  It was inevitable.   I ran up to him and put my hand on his arm.   I let out a low, muffled cry.   His arm felt like a stone on a cold winters’ night.  I felt my body shudder.  I remember being amazed that life could depart so quickly.     I couldn’t move.  I stood staring at him. It felt as if the life had gone out of both of us in that room.  I don’t know how long I stood there motionless.   I fell to my knees.  I heard this horrible loud sound.  It sounded like a wailing from some primitive creature in pain.  I looked around the room.  I was alone.  It was coming from me!   Life had returned to me with explosive force.     I wailed rocking back and forth on my knees.  

Q:  Have you experienced grief , over an event in your life, that literally knocks you to the ground?  For me these events tend to surface around the holidays.  How about you?  I find that acknowledging these feelings helps me move past them. What works for you?

Loneliness (Part Four)

An envelope arrived in the mail the other day – just before I left on my business trip.  It had a return address indicating it was mailed from my hometown.   I anxiously ripped it open.  Funny but I still get excited regarding news about my hometown even though I haven’t lived there in 30 years.   I guess for my generation that connection runs deep.  I am sad and relieved that my children will never have that connection.    I opened it to find an obituary.  On top of the obituary was a handwritten note. It was from a friend of my parents.  She was a neighbor of ours and had been their friend since I was about five years old.   My siblings and I had grown up with her three sons.   I always think of her with such fondness.  Just seeing the note from her brings back good memories of spending time with her family.

 “Thought you might be interested in this.  I know you babysat for her for many years,” she said in the note.    I knew from my Mother that my friend had been battling cancer for a number of years.  It had been in remission for a quite a while but apparently it had recently returned with a vengeance.   She was only 61 years old.   We had a deep connection when I was in high school.  After I moved away, I would visit her when I came home to visit my parents.  She always seemed glad to see me.  But our visits had definitely tapered off over the years.   I would contact her but she rarely had the time to see me.    I was hurt that she didn’t want to get together.  She had been someone I could confide in as a teenager and young adult.  We seemed to understand each other even though we were from totally different worlds. Those talks helped me escape the provincial attitudes of the city in which I grew up.   

Why didn’t we maintain that connection?  I wanted to stay connected.  Do friendships have limited life spans?   Do I just care more about other people than they care about me?  Do I value friendships more than other people do?  Am I wrong or weird for feeling that way?  Am I the only one who feels so intensely lonely in 21^st century America?  These aren’t new feelings for me.  I have felt lonely and alienated since I was a child.

I often wonder if our ability to connect is damaged early on in our life whether we can ever completely heal from that injury.  I was driven by fear to seek and also to run away from relationships.   Fear has been my constant companion since childhood.  Anxiety may be a more accurate term but for me the feeling is definitely one of fear.  When I was young I would sabotage close friendships when I revealed too much of myself to the other person.  Was I was afraid they would reject me so I rushed to do it first?  

Q:  How would you rate your ability to connect - form deep and lasting connections- to "friends."  If you want deeper connections what do you think is interfering with your ability to do that?

Are We Lost? (Part Four) ( or Do we live in a compassionless world?)

It was another one of those (typical) days – long, lonely, painful, exhausting.  No more visits from the “angel”, Deborah, or anyone else for that matter, except Nancy, Brian's sister,  and her husband. The phone was silent. The doorbell didn’t ring.   I didn’t have the strength to initiate anything.  And if I did what was I going to say or talk about.  “Hey good morning.  This morning I took Brian to the bathroom.   I wiped his butt.  I showered him. I fed him.  I put him in his chair to watch TV.  I am tired because I was up all night turning Brian in bed, taking him to the bathroom or rearranging his limbs for him.  So what have you been doing today?” I said to myself.   I guess I could have faked something but I didn’t have the energy for that.  My salvation was my time away with Gary at his activities and my visits with Nancy.   That was if I could leave Brian with someone for a little while.

Before he was sick Brian was always busy with social and business functions and sporting events.   He had two or three such events every week.    We went to dinner. We attended weddings. We attended anniversary parties. We went on trips together.  We visited people in their homes and they came to our home.    Brian counted himself rich in friends.   I never knew so many people before I married Brian.  Brian thrived on this type of life.  I would have preferred to have a little less social life.

After Brian was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, he continued to go to the office everyday and our social life continued as before. There was an outpouring of sympathy and support that was unimaginable.  I was touched and a little overwhelmed by it.  As the disease progressed and Brian wasn’t able to get to the office or leave the house, his friends would call and come by.  Brian’s condition worsened.  His body further deteriorated.

 “Hey how is he?   I’m going to come over and visit tomorrow around 10.  Is that OK?” one of Brian’s friends called to say.    “Great. Brian will be very happy to see you and have some company,” I responded.  Brian was waiting anxiously the next day for his visit.  It was 11 and the friend had not arrived yet.  I tried to call him but I couldn’t reach him.    This friend didn’t come the following day either.   He didn’t call to cancel or explain why he didn’t come.  “Hey Brian he probably got busy and forgot,” I said. “Do you want me to call him again?”  I asked.  Brian was silent.   I think he already knew. 

I did call Brian’s friend a few days later.   We chatted about his life and then I asked,   “Did you forget about your visit to the house the other day?”   There were some excuses and evasions.  “What is really going on?”  I asked.  I didn’t want to promise Brian a visit on another day only to have him be disappointed again.  I pressed the issue.  The friend finally confessed, “I can’t handle seeing Brian like that.  It depresses me.  I can’t understand him when he talks. I don’t know what to say to him.”   Other people said the same thing to me during the last part of the illness.  I wanted to tell all of them, “This is not about you or how you feel.  This is about Brian.  He is sick, dying, scared and he needs some support and company.”   But I was silent. 

 I judged and chastised these “friends” even if only in my mind.   Maybe I should have said those things.  Maybe if I had they would have come to visit Brian.   Maybe they just sensed my hostility and that kept them away.  I so wanted Brian to have visitors!   Oh later I understood that seeing Brian reminded them of their own mortality and they did not want to be reminded of that.  Still somehow I wished they could have put their own feelings aside for Brian’s sake.   I didn’t say anything to Brian about my conversation with his friend.  .

In those days I would still call “friends” to ask them to visit.  They said, each in their own way, that same thing.    I stopped calling.   Brian knew that his was not a pretty disease and that his emaciated and distorted body was not a welcome sight.  He was confronted with his own mortality each and every day.  The lack of visitors only drove that point home.   Brian stopped asking me to call “friends.”   He accepted they were not going to visit him anymore.  It took me a little longer to accept.  Maybe I never did.  There was little or no relief from the drudgery and monotony of each day.   Nancy, the “kook” and her husband were the only visitors.   And once a week the hospice nurse came.    The doorbell was silent. The phone didn’t ring.

Q:   What do we say or do for someone we know who is suffering or going through a difficult situation?  Are there any magic words?  How do we show them we care and are there to support them? Being present on the phone, via email or in person may be a good place to start.  Words can be comforting but is there anything better than a hug or a touch of the hand to say you care?  What do you think?  How have you handled such situations?  Would you do anything different now?

Holidays are too much work!

“Oh my gosh!   Janine run and get a small dish and fill it with hot water and laundry detergent!  Hurry!” my Grandmother anxiously said to my Mother.   My Grandmother was holding up a portion of the tablecloth and dabbing it with her napkin that she had just dipped into her glass of ice water.   Everyone was suddenly silent, staring at my Grandmother and the guilty party, me.  You see I had dropped some gravy on the tablecloth.  But this wasn’t just any tablecloth.  This is one my Grandmother had patiently and lovingly cross stitched for over a year.   My Mother arrived back with the small bowl filled with some magic stain remover.  My Grandmother placed it under the spot on the tablecloth and still showing some anxiety she sat down.  We all breathed a sigh of relief and I hoped that this secret formula could remove the stain from the beautiful tablecloth.  I kept looking anxiously in the direction of the stain throughout the meal to see if it was actually disappearing.

My Grandmother would spend weeks preparing for the holidays.  I can remember hearing her and my Mother discussing what food they would serve, where they would buy it and how they would prepare it.   My grandmother would clean the house and spend hours setting the table for the holiday meal.  The table was set with all her best china and crystal.  There were candles on the table that we would light during the meal.   All the silver was polished and gleaming.  All the large platters and serving dishes would be taken down from the top shelves where they had spent the last year.   It was a feast!

All this preparation and anticipation created great excitement on the part of the family.  We understood these were special occasions.  We would all don our Sunday best clothes, behavior and manners.  We had great respect for my Grandmother and all the work and love she put into planning and preparing for the holidays.    At Christmas time she would spend hours cutting little candies up into pieces which she would use to create holly and other Christmas symbols to place on top of the small tea cookies she had baked.  I can see her now in her kitchen bent over the counter concentrating on those cookies.  I couldn’t understand how she could spend so much time on something that someone was just going to eat in a few days but that didn’t matter to her.  It really was a labor of love and it was part of what she believed defined her as a good wife and mother. Who am I to judge that?

It seems each holiday I reminisce about the past holidays and revisit memories of my Grandmother and her house that smelled of gingerbread and evergreens.   Oh it wasn’t all good times but I find the happy memories come to mind much more often than the unhappy ones. 

 My Grandmother has been gone for quite some time now.  As I reminisce about her I wonder what my children will reminisce about in the years to come. I have not had the time or energy or maybe even desire to do what my Grandmother did to make the holidays special.  For a while I let that keep me from doing anything.  I was overwhelmed by the thought that I would have to do all that stuff and I knew I couldn’t.  Still I instinctively knew that I needed to do something to celebrate the holidays and make them special.  When my children were very young, as a single parent, I was totally exhausted with just doing the regular daily stuff of living.  Somehow I forced myself to engage in certain holiday activities that we repeated each year.  Sometimes it was as simple as attending an annual Christmas tree lighting.  It was a way of saying the holiday was special but more importantly it was a way to take time out of a hectic schedule to “tell” my children they were  special and important.  I came to realize, later, that these annual traditions created shared memories and activities that forged a bond between us – helped to shape us into a family. 

Even now I find I want to give up on some of our traditions as they are too much work or take too much time.  Life continues to be ever busy and filled with activities that take up so much time.  I keep thinking we will go out to eat for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner or I won’t decorate the house or tree this year or I’ll just give money as Christmas gifts.   But then I muster the energy and desire and I remember, as we are all standing around the kitchen as I cook and sitting around the beautifully decorated table that these activities bring us together physically and emotionally.  As we eat we reminisce about past holidays and meals and the good times we had back then.   We also tend to remember and focus on the good rather than the bad – maybe holiday traditions help us do that.

 My children are now young adults and they understand the work and effort all of this takes.  But if I hadn’t taken the time or made the effort when they were too young or too rebellious  to appreciate it or understand the work and sacrifice it takes to “have” a holiday I wouldn’t be reaping the benefits now.   As it was with my Grandmother, this is a labor of love – sometimes appreciated and sometimes not – but always a gift of love to my family.  Perhaps that is the best tradition of all that I can pass onto my children – that they are special and loved and we are a family. The holiday traditions we create are a wonderful way to say that.

Q:  What are your holiday traditions? What message do they convey to your loved ones?

Marriage and sometimes even a love story (Part Five)

Brian had pursued me vigorously.  I had been pursued before.   That is not to say that I am so great.  It is only that I am part of the generation where men pursued us and the women protested or played hard to get.    In this case I wasn’t playing hard to get.  I really didn’t want another relationship at least not with Brian.  After my experiences with David I was not the least bit interested in having another relationship.   Brian and I ended up getting married.  But this time I spent a number of years getting to know Brian before we decided to get married.

            “It is your husband on the phone,” the receptionist at my office said over the intercom.  I picked up the phone.   “My Dad is back in the hospital.  It doesn’t look good.  Can you come to the hospital right now?”  Brian asked.    I went to the hospital.  I called the sitter from there, “Can you stay late today?  I will be at the hospital until visiting hours about 8 pm.”  “OK,” she said.  “Let me talk to the children, “I said.  I talked about how their day went.  I reviewed whether homework was done and preparations made for the next day.  I kissed them all good night over the phone of course.   I went back to the vigil by the bedside.  

The bedside vigil went on for at least two weeks.   It was grueling.  Brian and I had been back and forth to the hospital almost every day.  During the course of those two weeks, I had received multiple urgent messages at the office advising me to come as soon as possible as the end was imminent.  This all took place just a month before our wedding.  In that same month I sold my house and moved out.  The children and I had moved into Brian’s house.  Brian and I were making the final preparations for the wedding.   I moved out of Brian’s house when we had a huge blowout and we called the wedding off    I was in court everyday as  lead counsel in a huge trial that was expected to last at least 6 weeks.  Brian and I were both physically and emotionally exhausted. 

“Get your stuff together right now.  We are leaving!”  I shouted as I opened each of the doors to my children’s respective bedrooms.  They didn’t question me.  While they gathered up their stuff I gathered up some of my clothing.  We threw our stuff into the minivan and we drove to a hotel where we would spend the first of several nights.  I drove the children to school the next morning and then I went to court. In a few days we would move into a rental house.  As I pulled away from Brian’s house that night I looked in the rear view mirror.  I saw Brian standing at the front door.  He was still very angry but also incredulous. 

I remember it so clearly.   Brian and I were sitting on the couch in the TV room of the first house we lived in together.  The children were in their bedrooms getting ready for bed.  I have no recollection of what was said.  Brian and I exchanged angry words. I decided I couldn’t marry him. I decided to leave.    I had no idea, at that time, what drove me to do that.  I am sure I convinced myself it was something Brian said or did.   As I look back on it I think I was driven by fear.  I wanted the security and comfort of marriage but I was afraid of what that would mean to my independence and identity.  Brian had very traditional ideas about marriage.  What price would I have to pay to be married?   A huge conflict was raging in me.   It drove me to leave Brian’s house that night.  I was so selfish I didn’t even think about the price my children would pay for my erratic behavior.

QUERY:  Sometimes our emotions are so strong, especially fear, that we forget to consider the consequences to ourselves and others.  Have you ever had such an experience?  Have you figured out a way to deal with those powerful feelings before you cause alot of emotional damage?  

Switching Gears

I was driving down the freeway with my windows open.  I was on my way home from the office. I was in one of those old station wagons which thankfully they don’t make anymore – at least I don’t think they do.  We were stopped in some gridlock for a time.  That was all pretty normal.   I noticed the drivers of the cars stopped on either side of me were scowling at me.  You see I had my radio blasting – pre IPod days- and I was singing – off key as I have no musical talents – at the top of my lungs and I was moving to the music – again without any rhythm.   (My beloved sister is always quick to point out my lack of rhythm and often asks me not to dance).  She wasn’t with me at the time so I was free to “express myself”.   I felt a bit chagrined when I noticed the drivers staring at me with a look of disgust but I refused to yield to their disgust.   This was my transition time and my only “free” time in a typical day.  It had taken me quite a while to figure out that this worked but it did so I continued on.

Being a litigation attorney can be a very tough way to make a living.  Oh I am not complaining.  I chose it – or at least as I did as much as I “chose” things when I was young.  I also don’t mean to denigrate other professions or lines of work as not being as competitive or tough.  I, however, can only speak about what I know and what I know is working in the legal field as a litigation attorney.

Let’s face it.  I think no matter what you do for a living there is an element of competitiveness and combativeness to it.  That may be especially true in these difficult economic times.  We sometimes feel like we are fighting for economic survival and that can bring out parts of our personality we really don’t like or at least want to encourage.  At least it does for me.  That is especially true for me when I started working as a litigation attorney.   That was Ok because I needed them, on some level, to survive and thrive in that field. (As I matured I learned to temper and control them better but that is not the subject of this short essay).

The biggest problem arose in dealing with my dual roles as mother and litigator.  (We will leave the impact of my role as wife to a later date).   The role of mother, in my humble opinion, requires an element of vulnerability, compassion, loving, nurturing, understanding, humility, patience and much, much more. It certainly does not require one to be combative or competitive.  So I had these two persons living inside of me and they tended to overlap at good bit especially at home. That darn competitor and combatant would not disappear the minute I walked through the front door of my house.  Often it was because I was still stewing about something that happened during the work day. I didn’t want to be that person at home.  

I discovered, quite by accident, that I could transform myself  from a combative, competitive lawyer to a mother. I did this by listening to the radio and singing along at the top of my lungs as I drove home from the office.  The more I did this the easier and better the transition from lawyer to mother became.  I had struck gold! So scowl away other drivers!

QUERY:   Are you working in a combative and/or competitive environment?  Do you often arrive home in a hostile or angry mood?  What do you do to transition from “business person” to “family or relationship person”? Does making a conscious effort to transform yourself help bring more harmony to your home life?  If you aren’t doing something now do you want to and if so, what can you do?

Raising Children the Best We Can (Part Three)

 “How could you have lost your glasses?”  I screamed at 5 year old Samuel.   “I can’t afford to buy you another pair right now!”  I shrieked.  I carried on like this for a while longer. I was definitely ranting and raving.  Every extra expenditure was a crisis in those days and I often took that and my other stresses and frustrations out on my children.    In fact everything was a crisis in those days.  I was exhausted all the time.    I was overwhelmed by the demands of daily living. Work was stressful.   The divorce was dragging through the courts.   I was receiving threats and being harassed by the children’s father.  The children were acting out and not doing well at school.  The house was a mess all the time.   The laundry was always piled high. We lived paycheck to paycheck.   I would rush home from the office, cook dinner, and help a little with homework, get the younger two bathed and in bed, wash the dinner dishes and fall into bed exhausted hopefully by 9:30 pm.  Then I would start everything over again the next day at 6:30 a.m.   On the weekends we went to the grocery where some weeks we had only $25.00 for groceries.   I was able to take the children on one fun outing each week.   We usually went to a park or other free venue to try to have some fun.   This is the environment in which my children spent their early, formative years.

During the demise of my first marriage, I couldn’t wait to get out of the office at lunchtime so I could go for a drive.  I would race to my car and drive into a quiet residential neighborhood not far from the office.   I would park my car, put my head down on the steering wheel of the car and sob for my entire one hour lunch break.  I would clean my face up or so I hoped and go back to the office.   Thankfully the people at the office were gracious enough not to ask me what had happened.  I think they instinctively knew I couldn’t handle their questions.

QUERY:  Have you made similar mistakes?  Do you berate yourself for them?  Do you carry around alot of guilt like I did and sometimes still do? Is it better to forgive ourselves and to devote our energy to finding better ways to handle things?  Have you ever apologized to your children for your bad behavior?   Did that improve your relationship with your child and/or relieve some of the guilt? What works for you as a parent to deal with your parenting mistakes?

Successful Women?

I picked it up and looked at it.  I wanted to put it back down but I didn’t.  I dread reading them but I seem drawn to them like a moth to a flame.   Whether it is that type of article in Austin Woman or the sections of the New York Times or Austin American Statesman where they have interviews or identify persons who have been “promoted” in the business world, the articles evoke unpleasant emotions for me.  I am referring to articles about successful women.  

You know you’ve read them. They go something like this:  “Nancy Smith was recently promoted to Head of Marketing in this multinational corporation. These articles are followed with a glowing biography or glorified resume chocked full of amazing credentials.  There is a photo and then an interview or announcement or both.  Nancy says something like, ““I started out as a file clerk and now I am President of this large corporation.” 

I would like to say I celebrate the success of these women but if I am honest I don’t.  Mostly I just feel inadequate.  I compare where I am in my career with where they are in theirs and I definitely have failed.  Why do I let others’ success make me feel inferior?  Some of it is cultural I think.  We are bombarded with stories of “success” and we glorify the materially successful.  They get the accolades and respect in the news and community.

Sometimes I convince myself that they have made sacrifices I wouldn’t make.  I wouldn’t want to work all those hours I say.  But putting aside the standard excuses why I didn’t achieve that level of success, how do I come to terms with where I am now?  I don’t really think I am less smart or less energetic.  I maybe –no I am definitely- less ambitious.  I’d love the money and prestige but I wouldn’t want to do the work it takes to get there or to maintain that standing.  It takes a lot of intense energy and sacrifice to accomplish and maintain all of that, I think.

 I know that, without consciously doing it, I set professional goals for myself when I was young.  Being more conscious of my choices would have helped me to be more satisfied with where I am now. (If I were a younger woman in a career I would make that a priority.) I saw my career as a way to support my family – nothing more. And as I look back I can say that I accomplished exactly what I set out to do – nothing more, nothing less. So perhaps I should have been more careful in setting my goals or revisited my goals as time went on.  I didn’t. I stuck to my original goal and now I am unhappy that I achieved what I set out to do.  Along the way I missed out on more professional opportunities.   I didn’t make them a priority.  Part of it may be my generation.  It was OK for us women to work outside the home to support a family but nothing more.

 I am never going to achieve those heights in the business world or maybe anywhere and I will work on coming to terms with that fact.  I’ll let you know how that goes. In the meantime I am going to celebrate the success of others. That is a good place to start, I think.  I am going to set some new goals in this field or maybe another.  I am also going to celebrate my own “successes” even though they look very different from the successes of the women in the magazines and newspapers. Sounds trite but I really believe it comes down to your individual definition of “success.”  To be sure, there  will be more to follow on this subject. 

QUERY:  Do you compare yourself to every successful women you read about?  Do you denigrate the successful woman's accomplishments in order to make yourself feel better about where you are in your career?  Does doing that really make you feel better about where you are?  What are some positive ways you could foster acceptance and enjoyment regarding where you are right now?  How do you define "success"?

Post Halloween Dilemma - Kids and candy UGH!

“Can I have some of my Halloween candy for dessert?” Samuel asked after we had finished dinner. I froze.  Before I could respond he and his younger sister, Ellen, had both gone to their bedrooms to fetch their candy.

“YOU STOLE MY CANDY!” my son screamed as he came racing out of his room.  I heard the angry voice and footsteps before I saw him.  He was about 7 years old at the time.  “Yeah YOU STOLE MINE TOO”, Ellen added.

"Oh Lord”, I said under my breath.   By this time both my son and daughter were standing right in front of me with a look of disgust and rage on their faces.   My daughter had her hand on her hip like she does when she is angry.  My son was holding the pillowcase, which was his bag of candy, in front of my face.  “This pillowcase was ¾ full last night and now it is only about ¼ full”, Samuel shouted.

“Oh my gosh Mom”, my daughter Ellen said.  “I remember that so well!”  We both started laughing hysterically.  My daughter, Ellen, and I were reminiscing about past Halloweens.   We both remember it well because it was repeated for a few years even though more than 20 years had passed since then.  It is funny now but it wasn’t back then.

Funny how your children can accuse you of doing things in ways that no one else can or maybe I should say they can strike a nerve like no one else can.  Perhaps it is the hypocrite factor that makes the difference.

“I don’t know what you are talking about and please do not speak to me like that”, I shouted back to Samuel and Ellen.  “Let me see the pillowcases”, I said.  (They had taken to using pillowcases to carry candy as it held more and was easier to carry around.)  I looked inside each of the two pillowcases.  “The candy just settled like cereal and other things do in boxes after they are in there for a while”, I said trying to be calm and dignified.   But I knew the guilt was written all over my face.  I was busted by my two kids.

“Mom you’re lying”, Samuel said with disgust.  He threw the pillowcase on the ground and stormed back to his room.  Ellen followed him.  Samuel never ate any more of his Halloween candy.

 As Ellen and I laughed I realized what a coward I was at that time. Even though it is a very funny story in retrospect, it aptly illustrates my lack of parenting skills at that time in my life.  You see my children, especially Samuel, would eat candy until he got sick.  I took the candy away so he wouldn’t eat so much of it and yes I ate a few pieces myself – maybe more than a few.   That part is OK but I lied to him about it rather than face a confrontation with Samuel.  Samuel was the king of temper tantrums.  They could last days.  I should have just been honest.  Trying to avoid the conflict only made matters worse.  It took me many years before I had the courage to be and learned to be honest with my children. 

Honesty, appropriate for the age, really is the best policy as I learned.   I would have to put up with a temper tantrum but then it would be over.  I didn’t have to be a hypocrite in the eyes of my children by preaching honesty and then acting dishonestly.  That course of action had far more lasting effects as they learned not to trust or respect me.  I have apologized for this and many, many other parenting deficiencies.  We can laugh about most of them now as Ellen and I did with our post Halloween trauma.  But, before we could do that, I had to “fess up” to my own mistakes and lies. That wasn’t an easy thing to do at least in the beginning. It was one of the most important things I did.  By admitting my own mistakes, it freed my children to admit their own faults and mistakes to me.   The honesty has helped us to form good and strong relationships.

QUERY:  Have you made mistakes or are there times when you have not acted in conformity with how you tell your children to act?   Is now the right time to “confess” that to your children?

Marriage and sometimes even a love story (Part Four)

 “I like you a lot,” one of the regular customers at the health food store where I worked in high school said to me one day.  I didn’t know quite what to say. Richard had graduated from an Ivy League school and was working in my hometown.  He seemed much too old at the time – 5 years older than I.   I really can’t recall how it was that we starting dating.  Over the next four years we spent a lot of time together.    We broke up after he moved away.    He came by my parents’ house several years later to hear from my Sister that I was married and having a baby.  I only appreciate now, almost 30 years later, what a great guy he was.  You see I wanted to fall in love like Jennifer Jones and William Holden did in “Love is a Many Splendored Thing.”     I wanted some adventure or something different from my middle class upbringing. As to the latter, I got my wish!

I wasn’t “in love” with Richard as I understood that phrase with all of my 19 year old wisdom.  I didn’t have that burning feeling in the pit of my stomach that told me he was the right person for me.   When he wasn’t around I didn’t feel agitated and anxious like something was missing.   I had that feeling for David so I had to be “in love”.

Why am I lately so filled with regrets over lost loves?   Have I really missed opportunities for love or am I just experiencing some middle age pangs of regret for my youthful choices?    It is one of the principal ironies of life that we make the most important decisions of our life when we have absolutely no idea what we are doing – like choosing a spouse and a career.  I found myself continually daydreaming along the lines of”What if?”  What if I had married Richard was a question that was haunting me.  

Do I really believe that certain relationships are meant to be or conversely not be?    Do I believe in fate?   Did I make the right decision or a grievous mistake?  It was so long ago who really cares and why does it matter?   As I passed the halfway point in my life I seem haunted by a need to find answers to those questions or somehow to put the inquiries to rest- permanently.   That question was pressing in on me as I had just ended another marriage – my third.  How did I end up here I wondered.   I have experienced so much adversity and my life has been such a struggle.   How do I make sense of it all?  Sifting through my past relationships seemed like as good a starting point as any. 

QUERY:  Can you recall an early love?  Is there a lesson or any wisdom to be gleaned from looking back over that first love?  Have we glorified it in our mind to an unhealthy level?  Is it interfering with our satisfaction in our present relationship? 

Loneliness (Part Three)

I spent three days in that desert town on this business trip.  So much had changed sometimes it was easy to forget where I was.   At times I was overcome by a constant barrage of “what ifs”.    What if ……???  How different would my life have been if I hadn’t married Brian?  I would probably still live here.  I wouldn’t have those memories that drove me away.

  What happened to the connections I thought I had forged there?   When I moved there I thought I would put down roots and that this would be my new “hometown”.  For a time it seemed like that had happened and then with the death of Brian it all abruptly ended.   Perhaps our connections to places are only as good as our connections to the people who live there.  The connections to our memories, our personal history and the culture and identity of the place can evaporate slowly or they can quickly dissolve as they did with me. 

Perhaps connections with people are best left untested by the trials of life. If Brian had not gotten sick I am sure I would be visiting and reminiscing with Eloise on that business trip.   Perhaps I am just too hard and unforgiving when it comes to others.  Maybe I should have spoken to Eloise in the restaurant that day.   I couldn’t at that time. The wound was much too raw.   Maybe Eloise would have told me why she acted like she did – why she stopped being my friend when I needed her friendship the most.   Would any explanation have been able to change us back from strangers to friends again?

I have come to understand, although it has taken much time, that there are many different types of friendships.   A therapist once told me I had an adolescent notion of friendship because I expected too much from people. In retrospect I think she was right. As we mature we have so many competing demands for our time – careers, spouses, and children that there is much less energy and time for friendships.   Could I have relegated Eloise to a casual friend?   I have learned to enjoy casual friendships but I don’t think I could accept a casual friendship from someone who was once so close to me.   I think it is OK to expect close friends to be there during the crises in life if not physically at least with some emotional support.  No it was better not to talk to Eloise in the restaurant that day. There was nothing to gain.  As it is now I have good memories of our close friendship.  It is better left that way.   I don’t need to travel down the road of “what if” I had rekindled my friendship with Eloise.   This trip to the desert has made it possible for me to stop making that journey. That is a relief!

 Unfortunately everyone acted like Eloise during the time Brian was ill and dying.  I lost all my friends.  Everyone abandoned us.  I was bitter about that for many, many years.  I made no effort to form any close friendships.  Should I trust again?  We have no idea how our friends, spouse or children will act in difficult times.  We have to have faith they will rise to the occasion and support us.    Everything in life is a risk especially relationships.  I can’t hide from that forever.   I was too lonely. I was going to have to trust again. 

   I hoped to make better choices in friends this time around or maybe just to lower - maybe that is too harsh a word - change my expectations for others and for myself.  Still I am haunted by the question whether it is asking too much of friends to show compassion and stick by you in difficult times?
QUERY:  Have we lost the ability to forge those type of connections? ( I hope not.)   Is it something that can only be formed when we are young or is it possible to find or develop those connections later in life? Did I simply chose wrongly when it comes to friends?  Did I expect too much of them?   Is what I see as the loss of "community" in our modern world a death knell for the close bonds of friendship?  How do we forge such close and enduring connections? I do know that, as with any relationship, it takes time and commitment.   Are we willing to make the effort and take the time to forge such friendships? Does our busy modern life prevent us from having the time and personal interaction needed to form such close bonds?  Maybe this just isn't a priority for us anymore.  Do you have close and deep friendships in your life?  If not do you want them? I know I do. Are you the type of person who sticks by her friends through very difficult times?

Raising Children the Best We Can (Part Two)

“Hello,” I would shout as I came in the door after arriving home about 6:30 or 7:00 pm. from work.  Usually the three children were at the front door to greet me and they would be jostling each other to try to get my attention.  “Mom I need help with my homework,” Jessica would say.  “Mom Samuel hit me,” Ellen would complain.  “Mom the sitter was mean to me today,” Samuel would say woefully.  They would all end up shouting at me as each of them tried to get my attention.   I would squeeze past them giving each a perfunctory hello and a hug before I rushed to the kitchen to prepare dinner.  I know they each wanted some one on one time with me but it would have to wait until after dinner.   They were all overwrought with hunger by the time I arrived home.   All three of them would continue to talk to me at the same time as I prepared dinner.   I would try to get them to take turns but it was pretty impossible. 

 Sometimes I could find a sitter who was affordable, reliable and cooked dinner but that was the exception.   Sitters came and went on a regular basis.  I couldn’t afford daycare for three children.  My children were not the easiest to take care of.   Samuel and Ellen weren’t keen on following rules. 

“Mom, Ellen is crying again,” Jessica told me.  It wasn’t like I didn’t know.  I had just walked in the door from the office. It was about 6:30 pm.  I saw Ellen sitting in the hallway that connected the main part of the small house to the bedrooms.  She was hugging her stuffed animal and sobbing.  I stroked her head and said, “I love you.  Everything will be OK.   Come have some dinner now.”   Ellen continued to cry for the rest of the evening.  I finally coaxed her into my bed about 8:30 p.m.  She was exhausted.   This same scene was replayed every night for months.   As soon as I walked through the door she would start to cry.   I was desperate to get her to stop. I know I was not always patient and kind when she cried. I was overwhelmed at that time in my life to put it mildly.  I wanted some peace and quiet in the evenings.  At the time I had no idea why she was crying.  As I look back on it I think it was her way of grieving over the divorce and the loss of her father.  For Ellen that was a significant loss. But I didn't have any clue about all of that at the time this was going on.
One night I sat down next to Ellen in the hallway and pretended to cry.  The funny thing is that real tears came down my cheeks.   We cried together for several nights.   After that Ellen just stopped sitting in the hallway and crying.  If only I had thought to do that sooner!
In all our effort to manage the day to day "necessities" of life sometimes we forget to or simply don't have the energy to make time for the emotional needs of our children.  This was Ellen's way of getting my attention.  How many times did I ignore her pleas for attention and maybe help?   I tried not to berate myself too much for my failures and instead vowed to do a better job in the future.  Somehow the pressing demands of life continued to push the emotional well being  or emotional needs of my children and myself down to the bottom of the "to do" list. I would pay a price for that later but I would also learn to make it a priority.  As a single mom or a busy mom or person, how do we remind ourselves to take the time out of our crazy, busy lives to listen to and give love to our children and others in our lives?  Isn't there only so much of "us" to go around.  Is it an ongoing challenge for you as it is for me?

Death and Love Together (Part Four)

Brian’s walk became increasingly unsteady as ALS continued to ravage his body.  He would teeter and totter when he walked and I was terrified he would fall down.  He started using a cane to steady himself.  He couldn’t use that for very long because he couldn’t hold it when he lost the use of his right arm.  I bought a wheelchair and put it in the family room hoping he would use it.  It sat there empty for quite a while.  Brian was having difficulty standing for any extended period of time.  He was becoming fatigued very easily.  One night we had a few of his high school friends over.  He grabbed the wheelchair and sat in it.  He was able to move around to talk to everyone that way.  It still sat there empty for a while after that.   

 “Do you want to rent a wheelchair for the day?”  I asked Brian.  He just ignored me and my request.  I didn’t say anything else because I knew it was useless to do so.  We started walking through the zoo.  Brian started to get very tired.  He found a bench to sit down.  Without asking him I went back to the entrance and rented a wheelchair for the day.  I arrived back at the bench with the wheelchair.  Brian didn’t say anything.  He just got into the wheelchair.  He looked haggard and defeated.  Brian refused to look at me for the remainder of our day at the zoo.  He seemed to feel a little better when Gary asked to ride on his lap.  At two years old Gary thought it was great fun.

The phone rang.  I picked it up.  “This is Officer Smith of the Police Department.  We would like you to come to the police station tomorrow at 10am to talk to us about your son, Samuel.”  “OK” I responded.  I hung up the phone.  “Who is it?” Brian asked.”  I lied.  “It was nothing important,” I said.  Brian accepted that answer.  If he weren’t sick he would have known I was lying.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Brian said.  He wasn’t able to physically shake me at this point in time.  “OK,” I said.  “Just give me a minute to wake up,” I replied.   “I have to go right now!” Brian said desperately.  Patience was never one of Brian’s virtues but, in his defense, who knows for how long he had been trying to wake me.  His voice was not very strong at this point in time.  I walked to his side of the bed.  I wrapped my arms around his waist and hoisted him to his feet.  He steadied himself for a minute.  “OK” he said to me.  We started to walk very slowly to the bathroom.  Brian held onto my arm as he shuffled his feet.  I lowered him onto the toilet seat.  After he was done I leaned him against my body as I reached around to wipe him.  I pulled his bottoms back up. (We had actually done this in an airplane bathroom on several occasions).  We proceeded slowly back to the bed.  Just before we reached the bed Brian lost his balance and fell to the floor with a thundering thud.

“Help, help,” Brian was pleading.  I was frantically pulling and tugging to try to get him on his feet.  It was the middle of the night.  Last time this happened my Father had been around to help.  He wasn’t here now.  “I’m going to have to wake up Samuel,” I said to Brian. “”Please don’t,” he pleaded.  “I have to. I can’t get you off the floor,” I said.  I rolled Brian over onto his back and put a pillow under his head.  I went to get Samuel. Samuel and I managed to pull Brian off the floor in increments using a vanity stool and to get him back into the bed.  Brian would fall a few more times before he finally agreed to use the wheelchair all the time.

I would need a break from the physical demands of caring for Brian.  I knew he didn't want anyone but me to care for him.  I knew I couldn't last much longer.  It would take maybe more strength than I thought I had to face Brian's anger and my guilt when I finally decided to get some help.  (To Be continued) 

Raising Children the Best We Can

“I’ll be over to pick up the kids to take them to a movie,” David, my soon to be ex-husband, said over the phone.   In my naiveté I told the children that their father would be over tomorrow around 11 am to pick them up and take them to a movie.    The two younger ones, Samuel and Ellen, were very excited.  They were 3 1/2 and 5 years old.  They got dressed early Saturday morning and waited patiently.   They were talking about what they were going to do with him and what movie they wanted to see.   At least as much as kids that age can discuss those matters.  I knew they were excited and quite frankly I was looking forward to a little time to myself.  I was going to sleep.  “When will Daddy be here?” Samuel asked.   “We are going to miss the movie,” he later complained when the time came and went for his father’s arrival.   “He will be here.  Something must have come up that caused a delay,” I said.  

After an hour passed with no phone call and no knock at the door I realized he wasn’t coming. I should have said something to the children.  I was a coward.    Eventually Samuel just found something else to do besides wait for him.  He went to his room and played with his matchbox cars.  Ellen, who was three at the time, cried and carried on. I tried to get them interested in going out with me to a movie but they didn’t want to. Their hurt was palpable. 

“How could you just not show up,” I shrieked into the phone when David finally did call.  I was surprised at myself because I had given up on fighting with him over how he treated me but apparently I still had the energy and grit to fight with him over how he treated the children.    “You are crazy.  I never told you that I was going to pick the kids up and take them to a movie,” he responded.    “Did I misunderstand him?”  I asked myself.  

I had just about gone crazy the last few months David and I lived together.   We would talk, make plans or make a decision and then when things didn’t go as planned he would tell me he never said that.  Now I started to doubt myself again.  It was actually stronger than that.  I felt totally disoriented again – a feeling I had all the time the last months of living with David.    Was I going crazy? Was the stress affecting me that much? Why did I even bother to say anything to him?  I knew that nothing was ever going to change with him.  He would never admit he made a mistake or did anything wrong.   But what about the children I wondered.

 Most of the time when David did show up he would take only one or two of them.  “I simply can’t handle all three of them or I simply can’t afford to take all of them to the movie,” he would say.  One very radiant child would leave with him while the other would crumple up in a ball on the floor and cry.  I was left with a shattered child whose pieces I tried to put back together.  (Jessica, the oldest never really wanted to go with her father.) That is how I came to view my children.  They were shattered into pieces at a very young age and the rest of their lives have been about putting those pieces back together.   The pieces never fit back together perfectly but at least, now, all the pieces are back and in some kind of reasonable order. 

“We don’t want to take a bath.  We want to go live with our Dad!  We want to go live with our Dad!” Ellen and Samuel were chanting.    I was somewhat accustomed to hearing this by now.  It had been several months since their father, David, had moved out. This chant accompanied just about every request I made of the younger two to do something they didn’t want to do.   I gave them a bath silently, dried them off and got them into bed.

 It wasn’t hard to be a better parent than their father, David.  I have often wondered if that is one of the reasons, unconsciously, that I chose him.   Eventually he just went away altogether. That is what I had hoped for but not until after he had made our life a living hell for quite a long time.  

Loneliness (Part Two)

I continued to drive around the city. I drove past the last home I lived in, past the school Gary attended for kindergarten, past the high school my oldest daughter graduated from, past the elementary school my children attended and past the church we all attended.  But I never did drive there.  I couldn’t.   I had stopped going there long before I moved from this desert city.   I felt guilty about that even when I still lived here.  Now I felt as if I should go there but I can’t seem to direct the car there.   I am not exactly sure what will happen if I go there but whatever it is I am afraid of it.  There is something about seeing that name etched for all eternity into a stone in the ground that unnerves me.   In the past I would start sobbing uncontrollably when I saw it.  I have no reason to doubt that would happen now and I don’t want to be so unnerved while on a business trip.

It was 24 years ago when I first saw this city in the desert.  I had already decided we were going to move there – the whole family.  I had never been here when I made that decision but sadly anything was better than where I was living at the time.  I was living in my hometown which was located in the “Rust Belt”.  It was 1985. 

I always smell the desert before I see it.  It is a peaceful smell or I feel peaceful when I smell it.  That was the first thing I experienced and came to love was the smell of the desert.  It may be what I miss most about the desert.   Smells are so much more evocative and memorable than any other sensory experiences.   Sometimes the only thing I can remember is the smell.   You can’t really describe a smell in words.  It is one of those things you have to experience.  You just know it when you smell it.  Like the smell of the perfume or cologne of a loved one long after they have gone.   The smell of the desert is best experienced at night or very early in the morning.   I remember smelling it on my very first visit as I explored the city in my rental car at night.  In spite of the painful memories I feel peaceful as I drive though the desert at night with the windows of the car rolled down.  I feel enveloped in the comforting arms of the desert.    

 The desert is a beautiful and fascinating place.   As you drive you see lights everywhere and then suddenly you see total darkness.  This city is huge now.  It is ever so much bigger than when I moved here.  Then it was a sleepy, little desert town.  But in spite of its growth there are still mountains in this desert that defy development.    And so I sat on the balcony of my hotel room and looked out over the lights and blackness. I closed my eyes and soaked up the rich smell of the desert.

This desert town is full of beautiful resorts. For some reason I chose to stay at the resort that I had frequented when I lived there.   I thought it would have changed so much over the years that it wouldn’t matter.  At least I didn’t recognize it in the photos posted on its webpage when I made the reservation.   They have excellent amenities and great rates so I booked a room there.  After I settled into my room I went to the restaurant to have dinner.   I was amazed to discover that it still bears the same name it did 20 years ago.    The only thing that has changed is the color scheme.    I waited in the lobby for the hostess to seat me.  I remembered the last time I was here.

 “Can you meet me for lunch at the Pointe,” Brian asked me.  “It is too far from the office.  I don’t want to take a long lunch today,” I protested.  “I really want us to have lunch with my parents today,” Brian pleaded.  As usual he persuaded me to do what he wanted.   He had a real knack for doing that.  When I arrived Brian and his parents were already seated in a booth.   It was that one in the corner over there.  I saw it when I entered the restaurant this night. His mom and dad were seated in the middle of the booth.    I slid into the side across from Brian.   We chatted quietly and then I left to go back to the office.    It was the last time I saw his mother.   She died of heart failure a few days later.

I decided just to eat at the bar.   As I sat down on one of the bar stools I remembered that this is where Bill had first introduced Brian and I to his wife.  Bill’s company did business with Brian’s company.   They had become friends long before I met Brian.   Bill called us a lot right after the diagnosis but he too, like Eloise, simply disappeared from our lives when Brian was in the early throes of the illness.  Oh he came to the funeral and even to the event at the house after the funeral.  I was amazed that he could do that.   I forced myself to stop remembering while I ate my dinner.   I returned to my room and thankfully fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.  

 I never really had a plan for my life, at least not consciously.   I wanted to be open to all of the possibilities. I didn’t want to be so focused on where I was going that I missed an unexpected opportunity.    That was a rather naïve view, to say the least.    Without any plan I was buffeted around like a jellyfish in the ocean.   You need some sense of direction or purpose I think now.   My stubbornness, my obsession to be independent, my craving for affection and my passive rebellion caused me to make choices that I see now were wrong for me.   My life, intentionally, did not follow the script set out for women with my background and education.   Sometimes I think I just sabotaged myself.   Other times I think I just wanted to do the unexpected – to be different and adventurous as much as possible for me.

 As I look around I wonder if the people who followed the “script” are really happier than I am.  They are in long marriages with grown children living in the same house in the suburbs in which they raised their families.  I was, for the most part, following that script in my life with Brian in this desert city.  We had a traditional marriage, lived in the suburbs and raised our children there.   I remember feeling stifled by all of that at times.

 Do the people who followed the script have regrets like I do?  From the outside looking in I imagine them to be very content.  I will probably never know because for some reason we don’t talk about those things or won’t talk about them honestly.   Often I wonder if I am the only person who even thinks about all this stuff.  That just adds to my feelings of loneliness and isolation.  What are those barriers? Why are we afraid to cross them and open ourselves up to others?  What do we think would happen if we did reveal our innermost thoughts and feelings?  Are we afraid we would be judged the way we can't seem to stop judging others?   How can we connect with others if we don't let our guard down - if we don't let people see who we really are?

Are We Lost? (Part Three)

I was pretty tough in those days or at least I thought I was. (This was back in the 80s when I was in my late 20s and early 30s). I certainly had to go outside the parameters of the traditional female role of that time in order to survive and take care of my children as a single mom.  That required engaging in some traditional male behaviors such as direct confrontations with others.  That created some anxiety for me at first but like most things in life I got used to it.

As a result I thought I could face any situation alone.  At least I had convinced myself that I could. I had to because I really had no other options.  It was just the reality of my life back then.  I had no safety net – no support emotionally or financially in the days when my children were very young.   So I was surprised that my “invincibility” was shaken by this upcoming event.   I was afraid it might turn into an ugly confrontation.  Brian, whom I would later marry,  was taking all of us –the children and I- to meet his family for the first time.   He was very close to his family.  We were going to spend Thanksgiving at his sister, Nancy’s house.    She had five children.   Brian was bringing his daughter, Bridget and I was bringing my three.    

By this time, we had met many of Brian’s “friends” and taken the kids with us to business events that included family and friends.     People fussed over Bridget. She was the center of attention.    I remember one of my first experiences occurred when we were all invited to dinner by one of Brian’s clients.   We were going to this great western steakhouse. This was the kind of place I couldn’t afford to take my children in those days.   It was going to be a real treat for them. They were excited and so was I.  Brian and Bridget came to pick us up.   When we arrived at the restaurant our hosts Bob and Kim were already there.  They were waiting at the entrance for us. 

Kim came running over as we approached.   She grabbed Bridget and hugged her.   She started asking her all about school, her mom, etc.   I was waiting for the greeting to finish so I could introduce myself and my children to her.  The “greeting” never finished.   Brian and Bob talked business at one end of the table.   Bridget sat next to Kim.  My children and I sat at the far end of the table.  Bridget and Kim chatted and laughed together throughout the evening.   Kim ordered special drinks and desserts for Bridget.

  At the beginning of the evening I tried to converse with Kim but it was like penetrating a thick wall.    I tried to engage my children in some conversation but they were all silent during dinner.  I sat wondering if there was any way to confront Kim or anyone else about this treatment without looking petty or jealous.  If there was a way I never discovered it.  After all maybe I was just being petty and jealous?    I know that I expect too much of people. I expected Kim to be a gracious hostess.  She wasn’t and I didn’t know how to deal with that.  As I look back I should just have asserted myself there as I had to do in the business world but I didn’t know how to do that, yet, in a social situation.

So I prepared myself for a similar experience at Brian’s sister’s house.    I knew that she was a close friend of Bridget’s mother.    I didn’t want to get all defensive but I didn’t want my children to continually receive that same message of inferiority.  I spent the drive going over several scenarios in my mind as to how I would protect my children even if it meant being confrontational.

  At that time I naively thought this disparity in treatment would pass as time went on.  But in the years to come, Brian and I would have many a heated argument over this issue. There was definitely a subliminal message that my children were second class citizens compared to Bridget. She was prettier, smarter, better behaved than my kids or so the message went.  Brian said it wasn’t happening and that I was overly sensitive.  I went along with that for a while in part because I doubted myself and my perceptions.  People in our business and social world  were blind to it or ignored it and went along with “Brian’s” program.  Unfortunately my children weren’t blind to it. 

 It really hurt to see my children treated like this especially when they would look at me with eyes that said I was supposed to protect them.  It took me a while to trust myself and my perceptions.  I am not exactly sure when I finally did get it.   I had a huge sense of guilt for letting it go on for so long.   But the critical issue for the time being was how I was going to handle this with Brian’s sister?  I braced myself for the worst.

Brian entered the house first.  I heard someone greet him.    As soon as I walked through the door I was smothered with a big hug.   “Welcome, welcome. We are so glad you could be here for Thanksgiving!”   I looked up to see Brian’s sister, Nancy, beaming a huge smile at me.  Each of my children received a similar welcome.  Nancy started talking to me as if she had known me for years.   She introduced my children to her brood and invited them to make themselves right at home which they did.  It was a wonderful holiday.  I noticed that Bridget hung back a little.  I guess that she wasn’t used to not being the center of attention.  I felt bad for her.   My children were having a great time hanging out with the “cousins”. 

While we were in the middle of our Thanksgiving meal there was a knock at the door.   Nancy jumped up from her chair and ran over to greet a woman.  The woman was dressed in tight pants and a top that didn’t cover her navel. She had platinum blond hair, purple finger nail polish, bright blue eye shadow and black lipstick.  She was accompanied by a small skinny toddler dressed in clothes that were a few sizes too small for him.  Nancy turned and announced their arrival.  “This is Kevin, my grandson and Deanna his mother.  This is Eric’s son.”  I knew something of the family history from Brian.  Eric wasn’t married and never had been.  He had a drinking problem and couldn’t hold a job or so I had been told. 

 “Deanna is an alcoholic and drug addict.   She claims Kevin is Eric’s son but I am not sure. She and Eric were together only very briefly.  Deanna has trouble holding a job.  She and Kevin were homeless for a while and they stayed here.  She is doing better now but she hangs out with other drug addicts and I worry about Kevin,” Nancy said.  She spoke as if she was reciting ingredients in a recipe.    I kept waiting to hear it – the judgment - the contempt for Deanna, her lifestyle and her inability to be a competent mother to Kevin.  But all I detected in Nancy’s demeanor and tone of voice was love and concern for Deanna and Kevin.

I was shocked that Nancy would fuss over Kevin like she did her other grandchildren!    I remember thinking at the time that people like Deanna, who engage in this type of behavior, need to have some consequence so others will be deterred from such conduct.    At a minimum shouldn’t Deanna and, by implication Kevin, be ostracized or at least treated with a little disdain as some consequence?   That is what I was brought up to believe and that attitude unconsciously surfaced.  

Wait.  Wasn’t I just ecstatic that Nancy didn’t treat my children any differently because I was divorced?   Nancy opened her home and her heart to my children, to me and to everyone else.  What a mean spirited hypocrite I was!

She was all about love.  She didn’t have a mean bone in her body,” my ever sensitive eldest son, Samuel, said between sobs.   It was many, many years after we first met Nancy.  We were standing together at the cemetery for Nancy’s funeral service.  How true I thought.  My eldest son was just a child when he spent a lot of time with Nancy yet her message reached him.   She welcomed everyone into her home and her heart.  She had health problems that were beyond horrible. She had serious issues with her own children.  Yet she always smiled. She never complained.   She was ever so grateful for what she did have. Most of us wrote her off as a nut case.  She was out of touch with the real world we said to ourselves.  I guess she was out of touch with the way the world worked.  She wasn’t judgmental.  She didn’t treat people differently based on their lifestyle, mistakes or history.  Nancy lived her Christian faith.   We watched as they lowered her casket into the ground.  She had always been there for me.  I would sorely miss her.  Her love enveloped you and could take the cares of the world away.

Marriage and sometimes even a love story (Part three)

 It is difficult to imagine that attitudes were so different in the mid eighties regarding domestic violence but they were.   The police were not sympathetic.   They would come to my door after a 911 call.   They would look at me in a totally disgusted manner.   When I said David had fled they would simply turn and walk away. They never examined me for bruises or marks.  They never even made a report.  They never gave me any information about any domestic violence shelters or court remedies.   The procedures to have emergency court hearings were not in place as they are now or if they were they didn’t tell me about them.   I stopped calling the police because they made me feel like the scum of the earth.

 The process of obtaining the restraining order was humiliating.  The courts and judges were not particularly sympathetic to domestic violence victims especially well educated ones. The fact that I was well educated made it even more embarrassing.    I didn’t have any police reports to corroborate my story.   I sensed that they thought I was making it all up – a hysterical woman. There was no self help available through the courts like they have now where you can obtain forms and instructions on how to do everything yourself.  I was totally on my own. 

Why did I marry him – David?  It was obviously a poor choice but of course I didn’t recognize that at the time.  The violence didn’t start until the very end when the marriage was falling apart.  There may have been warning signs that he was disposed to such violence but it wouldn’t have mattered to me.  I would simply have ignored them.  I was “in love”.   I wanted to “save” David.  He has his problems but the power of my love would change him or so I thought.  It is hard to believe that I could be that stupid but I was.  I have since learned that it is OK to want to “save” the world or help people but it probably isn’t something you should do when choosing a mate.  It is better to choose a mate with whom you can form a solid relationship so that relationship can provide the support you need to go out and help others and “save” the world.    Crippled partners make for crippled relationships which in my experience can have disastrous consequences. 

I was special because only I could understand David and see his good qualities.  I would make excuses for his behavior based on his motivation and character that only I could “see”.  This motivation and character didn’t exist anywhere but in my mind.   “You know how people feel about you by how they treat you,” my friend told me.   That was, sadly, not obvious to me.    

 I thought we had the right feeling for each other.  My Grandmother said something to me once.  She said what held her and my Grandfather together for 50+ years was the knowledge that they had the right feeling in the beginning.  Well sometimes I wish she hadn’t said that to me.  Even before there was a media obsession with romantic love I had imbibed enough literature and personal lore to know that I had the “right feeling” for David.  

I had absolutely no idea how to discern infatuation from love.  I didn’t even know there was a difference.  One of my friends told me he was lucky because his infatuation turned into love.  I was not so lucky.  If I was not so impatient I might have discovered the difference or at least been able to see David rationally.  I was impatient to find love or get married or something else.  

I was just about to finish college.  I had no sense of direction other than getting married.   I am embarrassed to admit that but it is true.   When the voice of prudence did once or twice whisper in my ear about marrying David I dismissed it.   I had convinced myself this was not an impulsive decision because I had analyzed and dissected the pluses, minuses and consequences of such a marriage.   I managed to convince myself this marriage was not the result of impulse.  But it was.  That was a pattern of behavior that I would repeat many more times in my life.  (To be continued)

Because I have been out of town this past week I have not posted.   I apologize for not letting you know this sooner.  I will be posting again this coming week.  Thank you.

Saying Goodbye (Part Two) or What do we expect of our children?

          “I had a serious conversation with Gary before he left for college.  I am very worried about the level of his partying this past summer.  I reminded him rather strongly that he is going to college for an education not partying.  I want him to have fun but he needs to find the balance.  (Finding that balance is part of his maturation process).  Well, I should confess that “reminded” may not be a strong enough word.  I warned him.  I threatened him.  I used every tool available to me to let him know I expect him to get good grades and a good education.  That is why he is going to college.”  I ranted all of this to my friends during lunch one day last week.

          My one friend looked at me rather disapprovingly. I think she thought I was much too “tough”. I could also read on her face that she was shocked that Gary was such a partier.  She is one of those parents who believe her children are perfect and that they tell her everything that they do.   So I got defensive and I started doing even more tough talk and ranting, as if that would justify my position with her.  Afterwards I felt stupid that I had let this mother of “perfect” children make me feel bad about my own child and my own parenting skills.  I thought I was beyond that but I guess I still have my sensitive spots.  Maybe I always will.

         Her disapproval of Gary’s behavior and my parenting style got me thinking though.   I used to have a “secret agenda” for my children.  As I have matured as a parent, it has been refreshing and healthy to bring those agendas and expectations to the surface and look at them.  That is often a difficult thing to do as it is now.  Why am I so angry?  What is it I expect of Gary?  Oh I am clear what I expect in terms of grades and studies.  But I sensed there was some expectation beyond that immediate one that I was not being honest about with myself or him.  I started mentally wrestling with my “expectations”.

          I don’t want to say that Gary “owes” me because I don’t feel that way.  I have done for him for the past 18 years out of love, not duty.  The sense of duty was the mantra of my parent’s generation.  You owed your parents and would be required to do things for them like take care of them when they were no longer able to care for themselves.  Their relationship was based primarily on responsibility and duty.  I don’t want that to be the primary basis of my relationship with my children.  But in running away from a relationship based on duty we may have embraced a relationship based solely on what you “feel” like doing for the other person.   “We need to let our kids do their thing,” we say to each other.   But that attitude seems to totally eradicate certain important elements of our relationship, any relationship. 

          I don’t believe that Gary owes me in the way my parents believe I owe them or they owed their parents.   But I still feel he “owes” me something although I don’t like the word, “owes”.  Gary “owes” me respect for what I have done and sacrificed for him.   I want him to recognize my contributions and honor those contributions and me not by doing something specific for me but by building on the foundation I provided for him for the past 18 years.  He fulfills his obligation and honors me by, in college, getting good grades and a good education and, in life, by acting as a moral person.   I want him to recognize that he is not doing everything for or to himself.  If he fails it affects me and hurts me too.  I want him to think about that as he makes his decisions. 

           Perhaps that is what was meant in the Bible when it is said “Honor thy mother and father”.  I never understood that Commandment before.  I thought it meant something superficial like being polite and respectful to your parents.  But it is much deeper than that.  It means to honor the work and sacrifice your parents have made to get you to your adulthood.  Children honor their parents not with empty words, but with actions.  The actions I speak of are those that exhibit the values imbued in them and modeled for them by their parents. 
         That is my hope for Gary and ultimately what I expect from him.  I have given him a moral compass. He must learn to navigate with it.  This is the maiden voyage and I am afraid for him and for me. Therein lies the source of my anger.  Now that I understand my expectations and fears I can communicate them to Gary.  Of course this conversation will have to wait a while until Gary actually calls me from college!  What are your expectations for your children especially the young adults who are going out on their own for the first time?