Category Archives: family

Sep13

What can I use that I already have?

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What can I use that I already have?

“What can I use that I already have?”

Here’s an unsolicited peek into my somewhat odd routine: what goes on in my bathtub. Don’t be scared, it’s not what you think. I take long baths in all seasons, sometimes more than one a day, even in addition to a shower. Other than my car, the bathtub is the closest thing to an office I have. Since the advent of the smartphone (and to be honest, it was before that too, just more cumbersome) I use my time in the tub to reply to correspondence, make my class playlist, read, set my schedule, order things that I need online. Like vitamins. Or a one-inch necklace extender for my niece. Or next month’s book for book club.

Online list fulfillment, for goods or information (can I use my stand-up paddleboard on Medina Lake?) is so immediate that it’s easy to overlook all that is right in front of us. Like many, I’ve been thinking-trying-hoping-planning to downsize, to purge, to live more simply and save more money. So, this morning with that in mind as I noticed I was near the end of the tub of my favorite moisturizer, wondering if there’s a backup in the hallway linen closet… it hit me: “what might I use that I already have?” Two birds, one stone?

I’m not suggesting skipping the Cerave and using coconut oil, (although, let’s be honest, we already know I’ve DONE that for everything from moisturizer to mouth-pulling and hair-taming), but I do have drawers and closets full of things that I either need to use, donate, or pass on to someone else. The gift bag I saved last week when friends brought me gourmet chocolates (which didn’t last 48 hours), the reader glasses I inherited from Jane, a pricey hair product that my sister passed on to me because she didn’t love it, the complimentary promotional notebook from my husband’s software conference (I could open a notebook store at this point.)

These things are taking up space, waiting for “someday,” I guess? Even if each of them wouldn’t be my first and best choice, I believe they’re worthy of being used, and why can’t I compromise on the ideal for certain things? I can’t imagine a friend would object to receiving a gift in a re-purposed gift bag bearing the name of a chocolatier. Or that I (or anyone else) would notice a temporary change in product on my rarely-styled hair. Usually, old hairspray and sweat are keeping it atop my head in a scraggly bunch with some small help from something containing elastic. And for all the notebooks I fill with ideas, essays, and lists, why would I need to buy one with a cartoon cat demonstrating yoga poses on the front cover?

My friend has given me her extra high-end cosmetics, and still an internet ad for a cool eye-brightening stick has reeled me in. Candles are in almost every room of my house, and I don’t light them very often. And does anyone really need designated “travel pajamas?”

It might be fun, or so I told myself this morning, to work my way through these things taking up space: my mom gives me the conditioner packet from her hair-color box, and our heating and cooling annual checkup included a free cooler-bag. Stuff is junk, yes. But I mean, I DO travel around with homemade peanut butter and often fruit in my car, so at some point that bag might not be a bad idea!

It won’t go perfectly, but imagining myself creating space, downsizing, having less clutter, and donating or repurposing more of these things to have calmer closets and emptier surfaces is appealing. I know I won’t be awesome at this, but I’m going to try.

And, then,

What I AM a little better at, what is less practical, is turning the sentiment (“what can I use that I already have?”) into a more figurative question.

Part of my job, if my job(s) include yoga instructor/student or a wannabe writer, is thinking that way: off the mat, outside the box.

As we strive for personal improvement by reading another self-help book, continuing our education, learning a new skill, making ourselves busier by doing ALLLL the things…adding to our schedule and resumé and activities list and that of our family members as well…

What if we each take a moment each morning and ask ourselves, “what can I use that I already have?”

If you’re a stellar soup-maker like my sister, and now have an emptier nest, you can share your gift with someone lonely, ill, or elderly. Most single people might be more inclined to open a can than go through the work of making homemade soup for themselves, so there’s nothing more appreciated! If you have tons of old books, you could write messages in them before donating to a local bookstore (there still are a few!) or make the message and the book choice even more personal and use it as an ACTUAL GIFT in a REUSED gift bag for a friend’s birthday with the promise of a picnic together. Last week a friend told me that when her daughter moved into a new home, the next-door neighbor gifted her a cutting from a plant. It had been given to that neighbor years ago by the previous owner of the home she had just moved into. What a precious connection! Could you take your dog to visit a nursing home? In the past year and a half, we’ve all seen people who sew make and share masks, a perfect example of this idea. A Facebook friend across the country, a real go-getter whom I only know once-removed through my husband, invited me to an accountability group of people trying to support and motivate each other. And don’t even get me started on the friend who came over to shovel a few tons of gravel for our firepit while we weren’t even home helping!

So, we are doing it already, right? But next time you’re tempted to overextend yourself, to stress yourself out trying to think of what you can do or give or be to someone…ask yourself that question:

“What can I use that I already have?”

I don’t mean just when it comes to giving gifts or sharing things. Let’s be honest, we’re not all going to do this instead of buying gifts (or at least I hope not!) But to add richness and purpose to each of our lives, instead of constantly asking yourself what MORE you can add to accomplish more, to contribute, what about what’s sitting in the crowded closet of your personality, the jumbled shelves of your talents and skills? Why add more to the pantry when its already so well-stocked?

If I could draw, I’d want to make the best custom cards. With clever sayings in them! You’re funny? Make someone laugh today. A stranger, even. You’re an awesome mom and your kid just went to college? Reach out to a young mom who may be struggling and remind her in your wisdom how these long days come up painfully short. Remind her of one of your favorite parenting hacks. If you used to be a bartender, don’t just serve wine at the next gathering, make a signature drink! If you’re direct, let that serve someone well by not skirting around an issue. (Thanks, Kim W.)

Your advice is invaluable. Your experience is needed. Your special talent can fill a gap like spackle today. There’s that quote about judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree, or something. Why do we try to climb the trees if we are so beautifully suited to the water, and vice versa?

Amy Grant sang, “Do you protect what you already own?”

My yoga teacher used to quietly say, “everything you need is right here.”

Ask yourself: “What can I use that I already have?”

Jul15

Happy Trails…

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Happy Trails…

My husband Jeff and I have driven south on I-77 to various parts of North Carolina about a kazillion times over the past 20 years. That’s the kind of math I do. Mostly together, although we’ve each made our solo trips as well. Back in the day when I was working a more traditional office job, we’d leave at the end of workday and arrive late in the dark of night. In more recent years of self-employment for us both (if one would want to refer to me as “employed,”) we’ve been able to leave whenever we want, since technology now allows almost a normal workday for his consulting business. It’s a route we know well (I only know it well because it’s one interstate, idiot-proof right up until the end) and have done in the darkness, the rain and snow, in old cars, new cars, and rental cars.

Depending on which relatives we are visiting, the drive can be anywhere from 7-9-ish hours. Sometimes people balk at that, especially knowing the serpentine West Virginia turnpike is included, but we love our hours in the car. That turnpike is my favorite part, and I’m the one who usually gets to drive it. The best trips are those taken in Red Snapper, the name of my 2015 Volkswagen GLI 6-speed. She’s not a youngster anymore, and neither am I, but we are bonded. There’s nothing like a road trip in the car you love. Jeff enjoys the drive, but he’s also a fan of flying anywhere. Me, I’d rather drive 8 hours than fly for one. The packing, the people, the pressure…to me, that’s an annoying way to travel.

Snapper and I took that very trip the day before yesterday, returning our granddaughter to her home after a week-long visit in Ohio. It was just the two of us in the car, my 7-year old grandgirl and me, and while we did leave fairly early upon awakening that morning, we had one stop about an hour from our house to see some extended family in their newly purchased home. From there, Kennedy and I had a fun, uneventful ride which involved plenty of car snacks (the key to any road trip) and a book series about fairies on Audible. Kennedy didn’t even take a nap the entire drive, and I assured her that I would not, either!

I prayed for safe travel, always have. Sometimes on these drives, I notice dozens of police patrol cars, waiting to pick off anyone speeding. My cruise control is always set for a particular number not too terribly far past the speed limit, so I’m not usually too worried about them. On this trip, I noticed very few speed traps. It was, however, the day after the fourth of July extended holiday, so I’m sure it was now a slower day to get back to a normal weekday presence. What I did notice, however, was the plentiful number of cars, from Ohio to West Virginia to Virginia and now North Carolina, pulled over and changing a flat tire on the shoulder.

About 30 years ago when I worked for the local franchise of Cox Cable, I worked with a woman whose husband was a police officer. One day on patrol on the nearby interstate, he pulled over to help a stranded motorist, and a distracted driver plowed into him with sufficient force to knock him right out of his footwear. I didn’t know the man, and I barely knew his wife, but that image has always stuck with me. I have considerable anxiety whenever I see people loitering near the side of the road, especially on the highways. Nowadays, people are standing around using their phones, not even thinking about keeping safe distance from the traffic whizzing by. I’ve been a broken record cautioning all the kids in our family as they obtained their driver’s licenses over the years to get far away from the vehicle and call for help. Some fervent prayers are said when I pass a person crouched and changing their own tire, without the benefit of flashing caution lights or much help.

We enjoyed the drive, popping gummy bears and sharing a Pop-Tart. We stopped to gas up and refill our snack tank as well with yogurt and granola, cheese and crackers near Tamarack, West Virginia. Kennedy was excited as ever about getting to both of the upcoming tunnels cut right through the mountains. As we neared the big hill (as my husband calls it) aimed to pass Mt. Airy, North Carolina, I said to myself (silently), “after all these years of uneventful trips, please don’t let us get a flat tire like all of these people! The last thing I want is to strand a 7-year old on the side of a mountainous road.”

Truly, rain or shine—and at least one time it was fully 8 hours of pouring rain—we had never had a problem on this drive south, nor the return trips north. Well, sure, there was the one time about 15 years ago when Jeff went alone, using my mom’s green minivan, and discovered he had no brakes as he slid down the interstate hill, but that was the only exception. He’s fine. He had to get to a service station and find a way to get his brakes fixed or replaced to continue. I remember being at a workday lunch, seated outdoors with my friend, when he called to tell me what was going on, but I quickly blocked out what might have happened.

My present-day internal prayer was answered, in a way. We did not end up with a flat tire. Instead, a semi-truck a few vehicles in front of us had shed his tire treads, or however that works, and that created a big problem for several vehicles. I saw the big black impediment flying first as it approached the car in front of me. With two full lanes of high-speed traffic and a narrow shoulder with a big valley drop beyond it, there was nothing to do but ease off acceleration and hold the wheel in both hands as the giant black rubber demon was spit from the rear of that vehicle, through the air and into the smiling grill of Red Snapper.

It felt like playing leap-frog with a car, as we heard (and felt!) the loud roll of an object beneath us giving us an ungraceful lift. I had been in the left lane, passing, so I kept both hands on the wheel until I could change lanes right. Kennedy just said, “what was THAT?!” but seemed unperturbed, and that’s the reaction I gave her right back, explaining what we had just hit. There was a sign for a rest area up ahead, and I planned to stop there and take a look. My tires felt fine, the steering wasn’t pulling to one side or the other, and no gauges were setting off alarms. As we approached the rest area, however, I could see that the exit ramp leading towards it was closed and blocked off. As we kept going, I knew we had some damage underneath, or were perhaps dragging a piece of the actual shredded tread, because I felt as well as heard a rhythmic dragging from the underbelly of Red Snapper.

We exited the interstate and headed towards a Marathon gas station, promised less than a mile ahead. The slower the vehicle went, the louder it was, and I gratefully pulled into the parking lot and told Kennedy to stay in the car while I looked at the damage. Poor Snapper’s jaw was fallen open, and the dragging I had heard was the shield, like a turtle’s thin under armor, ripped apart and dangling at various places. It had been riding along the road, and parts of it had been resting on the moving tires like they were sanding stones.

I was easily able to snap my little red car’s mouth shut again, but as for the thick, smelly, road-rash burned plastic shield, it was too big for me to handle. It was still too secure to pull completely off, but it couldn’t be left dangling. I opened Kennedy’s door and invited her inside the gas station with me. She unbuckled her seat belt from around the booster seat, reached for my hand, and I said,  “we’re gonna fix this with girl power.”

Inside, I found a narrow store, smaller than most, but adrenaline told me we would make something work. I had been looking for bungee cords, but in their absence, found some good old sturdy duct tape. I’m from Parma, Ohio, and my dad was NOT talented in the household arts. I grew up in a culture of duct tape. I remarked to the young woman behind the cash register what our situation was, and she said that she had a special clearance table with zip-ties and bungee cords. “Oh! Then I will take both of those too, please!” When I asked her to cut the packages open for me, she reached into the right front pocket of her threadbare jeans and pulled out her own knife to do so. Girl power, indeed.

Back at the curb, with Kennedy standing beside me to supervise, I used a combination of my newly purchased tools to shore up the dragging parts of my car. It all felt pretty secure, but we still had a couple of hours to go. We hopped back in the car, shared a few good sprays of what she calls “handzitizer,” and were on our way back to Interstate 77 South—this time, staying in the slower lane. I called Kennedy’s dad and told him what had happened, just so that he could call some local body shop or dealership while it was still the workday. I wanted to have the car looked at before I pointed it back up north for 500 miles the next day.

We stopped one more time along the route, after hearing the drag return, and recommitted my support strategy. By the time we pulled in to see Kennedy’s parents and little brother Jackson waiting for our arrival, we were again dragging a bit. But we had made it, safe and sound.

“Better than a flat tire,” I thought to myself. More expensive, maybe, but if it kept us from being sitting ducks on the side of the road, still my preference.

I could have opted to try and have the car fixed while I was there, but Hurricane Elsa was promising that adding another day to my planned date of departure was probably adding two days or more unless I wanted to drive in constant rainstorms and high winds. Early the next morning, I showed up at the local VW dealer and asked for mercy. I told them what had happened and requested that they’d hoist Snapper up and make sure whatever was going on under there was safe and secure enough to drive her all the way to Ohio safely.

Without hesitation, they were ready to help. A small-framed young man with dark hair came around from behind the counter and walked out to look at the car with me. He asked for my keys and took the car right back to put her on the lift. While he did that, I chatted with the two other guys in the service check-in department. One hailed from Michigan, a word that many Ohio State University football fans won’t even say out loud (he told me Michigan claims Toledo, and in an earlier life I would’ve told him he could have it, but now I’ve got a nephew who lives there). The other jovial bearded dude was about to take a motorcycle trip to Willowick, Ohio, in a couple of weeks to meet his wife’s father for the first time. We joked, we compared notes on places we knew or had in common, and then I retreated to the waiting area so that I could text my progress to my family.

The waiting area was a small but colorfully appointed alcove with murals of various VW models painted on the walls. My eye was drawn to the image of a red car with a street sign painted above it: Happy Ave.

Ah, so my prayer had not only been answered, but with a little extra wink from my dad.

Instantly, my mind went back to another trip to North Carolina that I had taken, long before I was married at all, around 1990, to visit my best friend who was stationed there with her Marine Corps husband. That trip was taken in a white diesel VW golf hatchback, the one my dad had procured for me to drive in high school. It was becoming overheated in the mountains, smoke under the hood and red lights on the dash, when the small-town mechanic we managed to coast towards suggested only that it be towed to the Volkswagen Dealership in Winston-Salem. Still a kid in most ways, around 20 years old, I remember calling my dad, sobbing. “What should I do?” “I have to rent a car!” “It’s going to be expensive!”

Hap laughed. Chuckled, more aptly. I could picture his smile, and I knew he was actually somewhat delighted by my predicament, once he knew I was safe. When I mimicked the accent of the mechanic, and lamented at the time lost both on the way to the destination, and then on the way back to pick up the car, he simply said, “but look at all the interesting people you wouldn’t have met otherwise.”

Two and a half decades later, I would recycle that message as I delivered my dad’s eulogy.

Yep, Hap’s fingerprints were all over this.

Rather quickly, the tidy young man who had first taken care of me came back to hand me my keys. Everything looked in order, and they had been able to simply remove much of that plastic protector that had run the entire length of the car like a ribcage to protect the organs of Red Snapper.

“You’ll want to get that replaced as soon as you get home,” he cautioned. “And don’t drive too crazy on the way.” As I handed him my credit card, he waved my hand away.

There was a time I used to appreciate when a man would be so deferential to a young lady, making sure I was well taken care of in a situation like this. I realized now, I appreciated a young man being deferential to an older woman in that same way.

I drove myself home, a little slower than usual and with the music not quite as loud so that I could hear the subtle complaints of my car. Being restrained a bit reminded me by contrast of how much I enjoy the relative freedom of the open road, a sunny day, a scenic route, loud music, open sunroof, and a fast car. For all of his sacrifices for us, I know now that my dad had this same enjoyment; that’s why he drove as he did, and as much as he did. That’s where I get it from, I guess. I feel so close to him on those drives, finding myself grinning or becoming aware of a tear in my eye, depending on the song on the radio and the current view.

Toby Keith and Chris LeDoux sang, “Now our windshield’s a painting that hangs in our room…it changes with each mile like the radio tune…”

A careful 9 or so hours later, I was home safe and sound and cutting into a rotisserie chicken with my hubby. (Unrelated, Jeff has told me that if someday I don’t make it back home to him, he will probably eat rotisserie chicken about three nights a week.)

And just this morning, one of my sisters told me that back when we were kids, riding in a yellow Suburban we had nicknamed “the Looney Bin,” she had asked Hap about the thick black curls of rubber on the freeway as we headed to a beach vacation. Heck, we may have even been heading to the Carolinas! She said that he explained to her how perilous they could be when they flew off of the 18-wheelers into traffic. Something he was worried about on those trips, maybe.

I don’t pretend my dad has special powers up there, now.

But “Our Father” does.

Dec7

Ain’t nothing to worry about, really.

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Ain’t nothing to worry about, really.

I’ve been known to name self-pity as my number one pet peeve. I can feel empathy for anger, grief, even forgive lies and betrayal, but I cannot tolerate self-pity. Nothing lights my fuse faster.

At the same time, I’m a person who is undeniably prone to melancholy when the season changes, when cold and darkness encroach. Much of the year I’m flitting around, every bit as annoying as a fly at a picnic, spreading a ridiculous positive attitude or at least some humor, even if it’s caustic.

So when the heavy, dark, and sad turns inward on me, my pity parties happen alone or with just my husband as witness. They don’t involve many words or even complaints. They involve longer baths, more comfort foods, even later sleep-ins (I’m not a morning person. Nor a night-owl. I’m best from 10 to 2.) and a few tears…lots of cups of hot tea and guilty-pleasure television, curled up quiet with a blanket. Missing my cat.

I know that I have an easy life. Sometimes, the ease and joy give me guilt…because, why just enjoy the good stuff when you can muddy it up with a useless emotion like guilt? I do try to share with others my joy, as well as tears, to verbally tickle and warmly support, to send texts or cards or mac and cheese as a way of assuaging that guilt, as a way of trying desperately and unsuccessfully to deserve or earn my relatively healthy, happy daily life. Cognitively, I know that’s not how it works. But I am profoundly grateful, profoundly fearful of the other shoe to drop, and profoundly compassionate by nature.

I guess I feel that if I so abhor self-pity in others, then I certainly don’t have a place for it in my own head since I’ve already decided I’ve got an easier life than “they” do. Almost across the board, I do feel like that’s true. So I have to keep the sadness at bay, the dark and heavy that descends on all of us at some point, and not always necessarily when things are going wrong.

The tiniest little things, the most off-hand sentence thrown about, can help me with this. And that’s just what happened last week. No fanfare or explanation needed, just right to the heart of the matter.

Without specifically naming the concerns of that day, because we all take turns having the same ones in general (a dying relative, a global pandemic, a friend with a terminal diagnosis, unnamed anxiety about the future, a family member losing a job, and all on the same day…) I will simply say that one day last week, I woke up in the morning as I always do, next to my husband. Feeling my feelings, I curled towards him as I hugged my pillow, and said something like,

“I just wake up so afraid of everything.”

And with no probing question, no eyeroll, no valiant attempt to change my mind, he simply responded,

“I know, but I’m here with you.”

If you know my husband, you probably think of him as loud. Maybe funny comes to mind. Or if he has insulted or criticized you, which is probable, maybe a more colorful adjective. He is too full of confidence and candor. He tends to be a cynic. His positive qualities are innumerate, but I won’t list them because this is about how no matter what his snarkier characteristics are… there he was being Jesus. Being God.

“I know, but I’m here with you.”

Meanwhile, here’s me, the one praying daily for the Holy Spirit to “bless my words, guard my words, and inspire my words…” and it looks like that paraclete landed right on my husband instead, at least on that day.

Whatever is going to happen to me, to you, to any of us…

“I know, but I’m here with you.”

Apr2

Touch.

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Touch.

When a baby is born and you pass her around, you wonder what she is thinking as she lies in your arms. Living in another state from our grandchildren, we spent the newborn visits hogging the first baby, trying to absorb her and letting her absorb us…hearing our voices, feeling our sway, sensing our scents. On her tummy, and eventually on her back, once she was stronger, her dinosaur bones, I would slowly spell out the letters of her lengthy name with my index finger. “K…e…n…n…e…d…y…”and finish with a big tickle up the neck, “KENNEDY!”

I could soon enough see that she came to expect it from me. Which was, of course, the point.
Eventually the child could walk and talk…funny how that happens, and quickly…and her mama turned the spelling of her name into a rhyme, “K-e-n-n-e-d-y, that’s my name, I’m sweet as pie!”
And, as kids will do with every parent’s perfect plan, Kennedy twisted that rhyme into her own ridiculous singsong, apropos of nothing, “K-e-n-n-e-d-y, that’s my name, football pie!” Then the laughter, the glee.

I’m sure I did the same thing thirty years ago on the back of the baby girl who named me Mamie, albeit with a much shorter name, K-a-t-i-e. I have done it using the few letters in Noah. “Again, Mamie!” The unique arrangement of letters in Loftyn. I have barely begun to do it on the quickly broadening back of Jackson, whom we haven’t seen since late December, as he grows and forgets while we all quarantine in our respective states. I may have done it only once to the new Myles.

My calendar tells me it’s almost time for what would have been my monthly hair color appointment at my friend Mary’s salon, and I remember a wonderful woman who retired from there named Penny, whose gentle, capable hands at the shampoo bowl reminded clients of a loving grandmother. Penny always made sure there were no suds in your ears and that the water was never cold.

Beyond even that date will come Easter, when sometimes my sisters and I would crash our hard-boiled eggs into each other, “egg fight!” Someone wins, someone loses, but then everyone wins because two of us like yolks, while one of us likes only the whites. It is often a holiday that my brother-in-law has had to miss because of work, likewise his son, the chef, cooking for families who prefer a restaurant for their fancy ham, maybe pork belly and farm-to-table eggs.
My mind wanders to their other son, all six foot four of him…did he let me draw his name on his back for comfort as I “rode” the MRI machine with him as a toddler? He’s married now, and his wife gives the longest, most heartfelt hugs of anyone I have ever known.

Just outside both my back and front doors, birds are building nests. Spring is dawning, which would usually be yet another excuse for a pedicure with my mom. Last time we went together, before her winter vacation in Florida, the young women massaging our calves with lavender sugar scrub were discussing an Instagram post in which some unknown harlot tagged our girl’s boyfriend. Should she text him? Ask him to explain? Or become Nancy Drew first and confront him with evidence?

As the weather warms, I yearn to climb onto my stand-up paddleboard, hibernating in the basement, and to lunch with my friend afterwards. And to reach my fork to sample from her plate, or share some fries, maybe a sip of each other’s beer.

Zoom and Facetime prevent the grandkids from forgetting our faces, as does an old-fashioned letter written to help bridge the chasm. Distance isn’t the problem; my best friend and her husband drive across town to stand six feet from their grandsons. My sister does the same to see the babies she moved residences this past year just to be closer to. Her daughter had ice cream delivered. Proximity is not the problem.

Today, the sun shines and more than 50 degrees Fahrenheit are promised, so I will take my mom for a ride in the car since we’ve been shuttered at home together-ish. Side by side. Last week when we did the joyride, we stopped in the driveway of her best friend who came outside to chat from a distance, bundled in an over-sized Cleveland Indians jacket. The boys of summer, benched for now. If we do the same visit again this week, we may have to call that our Easter since it is a holiday usually shared with her family…our family.

Months ago, as regular flu season kicked up, I stopped ending my yoga classes by giving everyone a gentle neck massage. Some folks say that’s their favorite part of class. Others, like my friend Joolz, only tolerates it. She doesn’t want to reject my touch, but she is one who has trouble relaxing, finding peace at the end of practice. Which makes her appearance there even more valuable to me.

Mass on Sunday is on TV for now, and while I may have balked at the exchange of so many handshakes at St. Bridget’s and often surreptitiously squeezed sanitizer into my hand and my husband’s (or once, the open handbag of the woman in the pew in front of us!) I do miss the waves, winks, and thumbs-up of those friends, each of us easy to find in the same pew week after week. The big ones and the little ones. Some of us grabbing breakfast afterwards. I miss the Eucharist. It is called Communion.

My original yoga guru ends class by saying “unity in diversity; all are one.” I miss meeting her for coffee after class. I miss the group of faces I would see at noon on a Wednesday, and even more the several with whom I shared tiaras and mimosas one year ago today for a 50th birthday celebration. Thanks, Timehop.

Before this all happened, we had Thanksgiving and an 80th birthday party for our mom. We had a Christmas with the kids. Before this happened, we rang in the new year on a mountaintop from a hot tub while fireworks exploded in the valley below. Before this all happened, we made it to the in-laws in Florida for a golf visit. Before this happened, we had a weekend in Quebec with our friends. Before this happened, we celebrated our bestie Ken’s birthday.

Before this happened. And now this has happened. And everything from this point on will be “after.”

I just miss touch.

touch3

(Photo from Mother’s Day 2019)

 

Mar21

Love Lifted Me

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The weeks leading up to my parents’ 35th wedding anniversary in 1994 were tense.

After so many years of bowing to the desires and demands of his wife and three daughters…my dad had ceased shaving.

My tan, athletic little fireball dad who had gone salt & pepper before my birth in 1969, who by this anniversary was definitely heavy on the salt, had decided for the first time in his life he would let his facial hair grow.

To be fair, this was the closest thing to a mid-life crisis Hap ever had.  This and a very inexpensive, very yellow old Porsche convertible which would come a few years later. 

But Dolores, our mother, was NOT having it.

Why?

“Because you look like Kenny Rogers!” she’d say, with a grimace.

And while Kenny was a very nice looking man, that was not the look she wanted to see on the face of her husband. And she was not playin’…she was not pleased, she was not kind about it. She was punishing him in ways small and large, I’m sure. We were scared–if Hap didn’t shave, if the cold war continued, what would happen when they showed up to the fake event that would actually be their surprise anniversary party and were barely speaking?

Luckily, through whatever marital manipulations will remain unknown to we three sisters, as the date neared Boots somehow prevailed and Hap shaved. They showed up to the party and were greeted by the two grandchildren they had by that time, along with the best friends, coworkers, and extended family they had cultivated during that long marriage. They cried tears of joy, and as the saying goes, a great time was had by all.

They were treated to a slide show of memories, and part of the soundtrack to that slide show was “Through the Years” by Kenny Rogers. It was their song, their family song–not their song as a young dating couple, but their adult, grown-up life song:

“Through the years, through all the good and bad…I know how much we’ve had, I’ve always been so glad to be with you…through the years, I’ve never been afraid, I’ve loved the life we’ve made, and I”m so glad I stayed right here with you…through the years.”

It was just a song, but an emotional one. My dad was a huge fan of country music, the country music before it would have a surge in popularity with younger people after that time. Before artists from Kenny forward would sway it towards pop. His country music was Ronnie Milsap and Lynne Anderson. I remember watching the Barbara Mandrell show with him as a kid and arguing that I preferred her sister, Louise Mandrell. He shook his head, “no way.” He liked Barbara. He liked that she could play so many instruments, a petite scrappy blonde who took on that steel guitar like other women took on baking. As her own song says, Hap was “country when country wasn’t cool.” Oh, sorry, he listened to country when it wasn’t cool. He may have owned a plaid shirt and a straw cowboy hat to wear to a convention of other financial planners and insurance salesmen, but he was not “country” the way Mandrell meant it. Not in the real ways, but I’m fairly certain he lived vicariously through Little Joe Cartwright and the Big Valley Barkleys.

Back at the anniversary party in 1994, Kenny Rogers’ voice took us all on an emotional photographic journey of our longtime neighbors and friends “through the years,” which included a third generation of children playing in the same two backyards. And while no more Kenny Rogers songs were included in that day, as I awakened this day in 2020 to the news of Kenny’s death, my mind’s eye shows me quite a few other snapshots that Kenny Rogers’ songs frame:

A cassette tape of his greatest hits played over and over…and over…on a driving trip to Nashville, when my parents allowed me to bring my best friend and next-door neighbor Kristine. It is only as an adult that I realize they wanted me to bring her to keep me occupied so that I didn’t annoy all the joy out of the vacation for my older sisters. There were several of those trips, so I cannot recall if that was the same one that also included the family/neighbors on the other side, which would have included Sandy and Karen, my elders as well.

My days in Tennessee were eclipsed by thoughts of a boy named Mike who worked at the stables of Loretta Lynn’s Dude Ranch, who gave me a peacock feather. It was obvious he was in love with me. I was a pre-teen. I assume he was old enough to have a work permit.

I wrote a few postcards on that trip, one to yet another neighbor and friend, Lisa, to whom I had written something like “the trip is fun, MOST of the time,” which was a dig at Kristine getting on my nerves, and me on hers, and a lesson learned when my mother (who was about to mail said postcard) handed it back to me with a “shame on you, that’s unnecessary.”

I wasn’t yet at the age where I bought much music for myself. I had listened to (and ruined) many 45’s and albums of my sisters in the early 70’s, fought through a few of Hap’s 8-tracks, and then when cassettes came out, I just listened to whatever was in my parents car. So, some Kenny Rogers. I loved the song Ruben James, “you still walk the fertile fields of my mind…faded shirt, withered brow, calloused hands upon the plow…loved ya then, and I love you now, Ruben James.”

Over the years Kristine and I shared many choruses of “Coward of the County” and “The Gambler,” and I privately swooned over “She Believes in Me.”  “Lucille” took on a new shine when in my adulthood, my coworker/friend Maureen told me a story about an automotive breakdown using the lyrics, “ya picked a fine time to leave me, loose wheel…”

But after childhood, I didn’t really follow Kenny Rogers, and his signature low growl in songs like “Lady” annoyed me. Years later I joined in the mocking when he had plastic surgery and those eyes were wound up a little too tightly. I never really sought his music again. I felt like he was making an aging attempt at being a sex-symbol.

But his song, my parents’ song, “Through the Years,” was the closest thing to an anthem our family had, and it was revisited on many anniversaries after that. My parents would go on to celebrate their 50th anniversary. By their 52nd, my dad was in a nursing home. By their 54th, he was gone. Sirius satellite radio continues to bring songs like that into my car, and when that happens I laugh, or cry, take a snap with my cell phone and text it to my sisters and my mom. Same thing happens with John Denver’s “Sunshine on my shoulders,” Sunshine being the name of our childhood dog. Thank God for music.

Now, it’s March 21, 2020. One of my sisters texted me this morning about Kenny Rogers’ death and how it made her cry, for all the reasons illustrated above. Kenny’s death might be getting more airplay today if we were not in the midst of a global pandemic of Covid-19, Corona virus. My husband keeps telling me to write about the worldwide crisis, to document the days we are all quarantined so we can read it and remember the details years from now. I haven’t done that yet, because what can I have to say about it–what we ate that day? What time we Face-timed the grandkids? Who of us still have jobs?

Instead, here’s my offering today. Kenny Rogers has died, and his music is part of the soundtrack of our lives. Hearing the clips of his songs again makes me smile. Nostalgia is strong, and I still know every word to those songs. Thank God for music, have I said that already? During this terrible health crisis when countless will be sick, many will be lost, and more will be devastated financially, I will go online and hopefully find one of those Kenny songs I sang after playing it over (and over, and over) on that trip to Tennessee, and I hope the sentiment rings true to us all:

“Love lifted me, love lifted me. When nothing else would do, you know love lifted me.”

Love Lifted Me

 

Sep16

My wallpaper

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Whatever you’re feeling angsty about, you have no right to. You don’t even have a real job! You don’t have children of your own to worry about. Is that why the unnatural attachment to pets and parents? How can you still be Catholic after…everything? And with a mouth like that. Wow, you’re a grandmother? I don’t check social media (eyeroll) but I did see your post about… Not to criticize, but. A boob job is not okay. I would never do Botox.  But coloring your gray hair is? Nail polish is allowed? You’re criticizing the Facetune app but you literally got a facelift. You don’t look like any yoga teacher I’ve ever seen. There’s water in the basement again. And another mouse. We will have to pay someone to take this house off of our hands someday. But you don’t even try. You could occasionally DO something instead of going out to play. You say Namaste but your disdain for the local weather girl is public. Holier than thou. I wish I had someone to pay my bills all the time. Maybe if you work at it your house will look better…your face will look better. Stop complaining. My pet peeve is self-pity. I hate winter I hate winter I hate winter I hate winter. I can’t stand the grey. I remember my dad saying he was starting to wish away five months of the year and now I’m doing the same, but when you age you don’t want to be wishing away that much time because you realize it’s not an unlimited supply. I hate the hourglass. Always have. I love being alone but I hate never being alone, never having privacy. I can laugh that I have the body (and the shoes!) of a drag queen but the nose of a toddler. So much guilt about things I’ve said or done in the past. I scratched Bryan in first grade and Russ in 9th grade and I haven’t been as reactively angry since. I don’t even have enough anger to punch someone, or a wall even. That’s weird, right? I cry when I’m mad. Right now I have two moods, gentle anger or melancholy. And all the self-talk to cheer. You are the baby. You are not the favorite! You are the favorite. I miss my friend. You used to be the favorite aunt. Just when they were little. You lost it along the way. He didn’t mean it that way. Your husband was so nice. I’ve never been a cat person. Now I’m lost to this cat. He didn’t mean it that way. He’d do anything for anyone. Show-off. That mouth. I should be writing. It is all written in my head, so much, years’ worth. Like laundry that’s clean and even folded but never gets put away. You’ll die without that laundry being put away and no one will know anything. But who would care anyway, enough to read it? Who would read it? YOU don’t even want to read it. And then you do and and WOW that’s really good! Wait, you think that’s good writing? Who dressed this weather girl, seriously. Idiot. Hot yoga is a gimmick? Self-pity is my number one pet peeve. I just want to drive by myself. I just want to have once looked the way I dreamed. It’s only because of someone else that I got a degree, or a certification, or a license. Where is the me? Gluttony is a sin. Food, and stuff. You have always been overweight, even at your skinniest. Strongest person I know. Strong. Physically, mentally, emotionally. I seriously cannot believe anyone smokes. Alcohol doesn’t like me anymore. My intentions are always good. Jewel, as a really young person, once said publicly that you can control your own thoughts and so now I do. Back when I was up all night listening to her howl. Be better. It’s not fair that not everyone gets to see what I see some days, the squirrels, the heron. Fall makes me so melancholy. I hate morning. I hate awakening. I hate winter. I used to wake up with the window open and feel the breeze, hear the birds, feel the weight of his purring body on mine and smile. Now without the purring I don’t even notice the breeze or the birds…yet. Why was I born in relative prosperity when someone is waking up on a dirt floor, cold? I didn’t earn it, I don’t deserve it! Why do you always land on your feet? It’s not fair. You don’t deserve it. One of us is going to get sick with cancer and have to care for the other. One of us is going to die. That used to feel so far away. I miss Hap. I want to achieve more but I don’t want to work harder. I should walk today, but I might sit here and watch Bravo. Fast on Mondays. No TV on Mondays. Games people play. Don’t be so hard on yourself, you don’t deserve it. One of these times the mammogram will come back bad. I don’t want to stop eating, God I love food. I want to be a vegetarian. I don’t want to be a vegetarian. I want my hair longer, one last time. I want my hair as short as a guy. Am I too old for that? Am I too young for that? Am I too ugly for that? Pretty is as pretty does. That’s what my mom always said. I can’t see my own eyebrows very well anymore to do them. Just because you go to church doesn’t make you a good person. Why do you people put your kids through this? I wish I would’ve had a flat belly just once, even if it was when I was young. Younger was uglier for me. We just have different values, that’s all, not saying whose are better. It’s like Jedd Clampett’s yard out there and I wish I cared more or wanted to do something about it. You always think you’re right. Eye roll. I’m super cool because I drive a stick shift but I’m tall and arthritic to sit so low in a car now. Seriously you’re not that old. I cannot believe you’re this old. When did it all get to be behind instead of in front of? We can suck it up, we can be the bigger person (people.) Let them do what they need to do. It’s okay. It makes me anxious when you act like an old person. Will I find you at the bottom of the stairs one day? Will it be fast or slow or dramatic? Can’t I just eat what I want and not gain weight. Does every menopausal woman cry once a day about absolutely nothing? What will I eat when I get home. What do YOU have to be depressed about? Must be nice to be you. What’s it like to be you? Fifty and to be honest I’ve never once for more than a day had a clean polished car or a clean polished house. I love the restful feeling of walking into the neat person’s house but I know they don’t often feel restful like me so how does this all work? Will I ever get it together? Obviously not and most of the time that’s okay. Laughter. Thank God for that, and now can some people not find that everything can be funny? Make me an instrument of your peace, send your Holy Spirit to bless my words, guard my words, inspire my words, actions, asana practice, and even my thoughts that they may glorify you God and best serve those you place in my path today according to your holy will for them. Help me to serve from humility and not ego and make me better. The other night I woke to the sound of a storm through the open windows, the kind of noise and breeze and bliss me and the Peeps would enjoy together, and as I lay there and cried I heard the big family of deer walking by under my window, just a different animal to keep me company. That friend that I love but is so bitter and negative and doesn’t know it. Its not THE BFF by the way. Wasn’t that a nice daily prayer tho, but the one that comes even more often is please don’t let me be such an asshole. Please make me less of an asshole. What’s my purpose here, anyway? Thanks for inventing ice cream, whoever you are. Suck it all up, buttercup. Everyone’s got stuff. All misunderstood.

Jan11

I really have no idea why you’d read what I have to say.

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Kerrygold’s Dubliner cheese is one of several reasons I have not been able to commit to being a vegetarian. Seriously unsure I could live without a bit of it from time to time. Other than that cheese and some other isolated dairy purchases (ice cream), I try to buy organic sustainable happy cow milk products when I have to. But dairy is not inflammatory to me, and all I use is a plop of milk in my coffee and some organic plain yogurt for probiotics and calcium. Cuz no, despite my advanced age I’m still not taking calcium supplements.

I am an animal lover and advocate and yes obviously I abhor factory farmed meat. But I also run quite low on iron and after years of experimenting with diets (for weight loss, but also vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, dairy-free, gluten-free, etc…) I just know what my body likes to run at its best. And it involves small amounts of meat a couple of times a week. So I pay through the nose for allegedly sustainably-procured animal protein. Which means our Thanksgiving turkeys are about 75 bucks. But I feel better.

On the subject of food, one of the bright spots of my week was knowing that my great-niece, quite new to food at only 6 months old, zealously enjoyed the organic, washed, steamed, pureed, stored in bpa-free-containers sweet potatoes I made for her. She will grow up and grow old never knowing that as an infant, Mamie took such joy in a few hours of steaming vegetables and spooning them into serving-sized trays. But Mamie knows. Somehow when I blinked, turning away for a moment from giving hugs and love to my niece, she grew up and had a baby. So now I have this teeny, tiny hand in nurturing the baby of the first baby I ever loved.

To segue into babies that I love, Peepers is still alive and more than half-well, after convincing me he wasn’t going to make the new year. I won’t bore you with details–well, I actually WILL, probably, at some point–but for now he’s acting close to normal for a cat his age. Which is an adjustment for me, because three months ago he was acting like a cat less than half of his age. But as I type this, I hear the news that the only other remaining sibling in his litter was put to sleep this week for kidney failure. So at their age (15) and of unknown parentage (they don’t know who their daddy was, surely he was a drinking, smoking, philandering diabetic cat with no job) I guess it’s time to acknowledge his frailty. Interestingly, Peepers was the runt of his litter, and that’s the reason I ultimately kept him. Which involved a bit of a tiff, because he had been promised to a friend of a friend. But after keeping the litter long enough to safely vet and re-home them, I decided to offer that girl another cat because I couldn’t part with the Peeps. She didn’t want another cat, and Peepers stayed. I’ve never had a cat before him, only dogs, so I was rather vigilant with his health because everything was new to me. Like his parents, he received overpriced propaganda food, so maybe that helped keep him in optimal health for his genetics up until recent events. Aging takes its toll. But the last remaining sibling who passed this week had been the most robust of the litter, large, confident, the ringleader. And female. So the strongest and the weakest survived this life the longest. And the runt is the last of the red-hot lovers!

I’d still love to eke out more time with Peeps. I’ve always said I hoped to get him past age 20. Can diet and supplements and occasional fluids keep him in a good life for awhile? Time will tell. The vet knows that it’s not my plan to keep him alive if he’s ever suffering. And we’ve all put pets down before and know how this goes. But I was unprepared to find out how different cats are than dogs. For example, in conversations with friends I volunteered with at the cat shelter, and other cat owners, it seems this sub-cutaneous fluids thing and appetite stimulation is a common thing with cats. So God apparently made an animal that will curl up behind a chair, filing its nails in boredom, and say, “nah, that food isn’t what I want, and plus it’s all the way across the room, so I will instead just die here.”

He’s here with me, curled up on the bed in the spare bedroom while I type. I’m exhausted emotionally from all the self-talk of being willing to let him go, but also listening to more experienced cat people tell me this ain’t (yet) that tragic and he may have some good life left in him. I never thought of myself as impatient, but his improvement (behavior-wise, like wanting to jump on the refrigerator or drink out of every sink in the house) is slow in coming. And maybe it will come, maybe it won’t. It’s the not knowing, the being patient, that apparently keeps me stressed. I’m not a stressy person. And I’m still in denial that this situation caused my hives or my recent illness. I’m pretty sure a dad with dementia was more stressful than this, but no hives then.

And I tread lightly in saying this, because it’s ridiculous to compare my cat to a sick child, but all I’ve been able to think of since this started, since I wake up every day and first check on where he is and how he feels before I can proceed with my day, is how the hell do people with chronically ill family members survive? How do they go to work if their sick child is having a bad day, a seriously bad day with pain and suffering and dire consequences? And not even how do they GO to work, but how do they un-preoccupy their mind enough to even drive to work? To put a bite of food in their mouth? To brush their teeth?

A sick pet for a couple of months and I ate like a trash can and stopped flossing. Like there was no room in my psyche for mundane details while this was going on. So I’m not saying it’s even close–I’m saying that from now on I pray fervently for people going through worse. Who still have to cook and work and carpool and pay bills.

Now let’s talk about joy. I keep hearing this new year about how to purge the clutter from your home by touching items and seeing if they “spark joy” in your heart, and if not…it’s file 13. I like it! It has helped me. I keep things I don’t love, often, because I love the person who gave them to me. But that’s stupid. Because most of the time, unless it’s a memento like a piece of jewelry, ain’t nobody gonna remember the sweater they bought you or notice if they’ve seen you wear it, and they certainly aren’t going to go through the closet to see if you kept it. So I’m going with it! Except I will keep the traffic-cone orange hooded rain jacket my husband bought me, because it’s simply so ugly that it has become a story. And that does give me joy.

My car gives me joy, and today I had to take her to the dealer for a blinker to be fixed. (Yes, I know this is a small chore some people take care of themselves, and in fact I’m pretty sure one of my sisters has done this for herself on her car. But this is me we’re talking about. But before you judge, I DID take the back off of my dryer a couple years ago to be sure it wasn’t just a blown fuse before I purchased a new one.) When I have to take my car in, it’s always a scramble because my car is basically an apartment. Today’s efforts to tidy up were actually not that taxing, mostly because it’s winter. So I had to move someone’s Christmas gift (thought I’d see her over the holidays and still haven’t) to the trunk, move the bottle of champagne I keep hearing rolling around the floor in the back to the front passenger seat, ditch bank deposit slips in the trash (because, do I really want them to see the size of my deposits? Some people may think this would incite theft or bitterness because a person has huge bank accounts. But seeing the $50 deposit for teaching two yoga classes at an adult day-hab facility may actually spark pity, and I don’t want that.) Come to think of it, maybe they saw one today by accident, because when it came time to check out, the service manager told me she wasn’t charging me because it took a little longer than expected.

This month was my book club meeting, and I have to confess I read that book in the eleventh hour because I assumed it would annoy me. Late to the bandwagon, I may actually cop to being a fan of Rachel Hollis (Girl, Wash Your Face, among other successes.) A good friend was reading/listening to the book on Audible, and she was a bit irritated by Ms. Hollis’ vocal quality, which is EXACTLY the kind of thing that I’m easily annoyed by (if you know me, you know which local weather chick drives me nuts with her affect!)…so, I promptly went to my cable television remote, having recently discovered I could say “YouTube!” into and watch videos on my television…and watched a few interviews with Rachel Hollis. And I was not irritated. I can absolutely see where the annoyance would occur, but it didn’t work on me. She just seems too sincere to me for it to matter. Plus, she said a few things on a podcast which seemed to be directed right at me. So, I’m on that bandwagon for now. I’m not part of her “tribe,” all the rage, that buzzword…and I don’t feel like we have much in common, because she’s pretty much the antithesis of me. But I like her. Which makes this all the more serendipitous.

Speaking of speaking into my remote, I found myself this week on the couch, under a blanket, with a spoon in my jar of homemade peanut butter…watching power yoga on YouTube.

Other bright spots in my week:

Seeing a guy on a riding lawnmower drive out to get his mail, on a not-very-long driveway. I decided maybe he had a busted hip. Or a hangnail.

Walking out to get the mail myself on a different day, between black-as-night hailstorms, and noticing the warm sun…saying to myself, “but another storm is coming,” (having been told that by my iPhone) and then replying to myself, “No. Just notice the sun. Full stop.”

Realizing I’m definitely like a grandmother (and, in fact, AM a grandmother) because I have two pairs of pajamas that stay in the drawer unless I’m traveling. To “keep them nice.” Too much stuff, yes, but having decent pajamas when traveling does “spark my joy,” so they made the cut. The rest of my pj’s are bleached, ripped, stretched pants, often flannel, or having cats (my best friend swore years ago to keep me in line by allowing cats on only socks and pajamas, not real clothes) or shoes or wine patterns, and worn with old shirts whose sleeves have been cut off carelessly. Why? Because my annoying ample bosom makes sleeves feel restrictive for me. Like when I reach my arm for something, I feel like the whole shirt tightens and my neck feels choked. This is the same reason I can’t practice yoga in any sleeves. It’s not because I think my arms are sexy.  So now you know.

Speaking of acting like a grandma, I ran into a grade-school friend, the boy–because we were the same height–who was my boy/girl line up partner from Kindergarten to First Communion to 8th grade graduation at St. Bartholomew. I ended up in line BEHIND him for a change, at the CVS. Where I was buying cat food. And ice cream. I’m not making this up. It was Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia. And gravy-lovers chicken feast.

I will probably never blog to list things that were UN-bright spots of my week, but finding out after two decades that my husband eats a Klondike bar with a plate and a spoon was unwelcome information. It might have even been a fork. I couldn’t watch, so I’m not sure. But I forgave him, because he also wordlessly handed me the very last dregs of the leftover mashed potatoes before putting the bowl in the sink. Oh no, I’m sorry–NEXT to the sink, because he apparently thinks it looks better to have dirty dishes on the counter than in the sink.

Hey, follow Lin-Manuel Miranda on Twitter. I don’t think you’ll be sorry.

Nov6

On being Catholic…

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#bene

I just made that up. It stands for “blog entry, no editing.” So here that goes:

Why am I a practicing Catholic? (IF I am a practicing Catholic.) I humbly submit that even professing myself to be a practicing Catholic feels like an overstatement, not because I don’t consider myself one but because humility (yes, humility) prevents me from feeling that I do enough successful Catholic-ing to boast the practice, although I’d be proud to say that I am trying.

But the priests fondling little boys! But the power and corruption and cover-ups! The hypocrisy, the money, the nuns with their rulers. Yes, all of that. But “here’s what” (as Andy Cohen might say):

I belong to a family. I don’t always agree with them, their behavior, their mistakes, their opinions, their rules and criticisms, the way they raise their children or treat their husbands or what they make for dinner.  I am still a proud member of my family.

I work for a company. I don’t always agree with the owners, their choices, what they wear to work, what music they play in the lobby, the style of the product they sell, the tagline they stenciled on the front door, the color they painted the walls.  I am still grateful to work there and consider myself a proud member of their team.

I live in a community. I don’t always agree with its leaders, the way they enforce the speed limit on my street, the poor business decisions that have led to the empty storefronts, the rusted fire hydrant in front of my house, the lack of responsiveness to complaints, the fact that bulk trash pickup occurs only once a month. I still choose to live here and support the local economy and am proud to be neighbors with the population.

You see where I’m going here, I’m sure. I don’t have to agree with the Catholic church leadership on everything. I am but one member of this body. So yes, that might make me an imperfectly practicing Catholic, but I still call myself Catholic. You may think the Catholic church doesn’t like gays because it will only marry a man and a woman. You may think it thinks poorly of women because they aren’t allowed to be priests. You may think many things about the many things you disagree with the church about. Understand that the church has very specific reasons for its laws. And I have been fortunate enough to be educated my entire life by Catholics, lay and clergy, from preschool through high school and beyond. I was fortunate that all of these influences, all of the folks who have been placed in my path to guide me in my faith have somehow imparted to me that MY personal faith is one informed by my religion, yes, but more importantly by my prayer life, my living relationship with God–the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. My conscience is informed by my conversations with God. Which is not to say that I get to make things up, decide which rules are right and wrong for the Church, because that’s not the case. As a responsible person of faith, I read about and experience my religion, deliberately, to inform my conscience. I ask for help in prayer, and it is delivered to me in books, readings, human beings, nature, news, suffering, and joy…jobs, relationships, pets, vacations, athletic endeavors, illnesses.

I know how I feel about homosexuals, and immigrants, and bad guys, terrorists, orphans, the mentally ill, the imprisoned, Jews, Muslims, interracial couples, cops, criminals, the elderly, the unborn, the born-again, the agnostic and atheist, the current president of our country, the harassed and the rapist. Every time I need to make a decision about my words or actions about one of them, that decision is informed not by my family, my job, my community, nor my religion, but by my informed conscience. My conscience, my personal faith informed and fed constantly by my active, living relationship with the holy trinity through prayer and worship and works and participation.

I’m wrong, hell yes, all the time. I revise and reconsider, beat myself up and nod at myself in agreement. But I practice. Not just being Catholic, but being me, being human, being a person of faith and a witness to that faith. I ask for the help, and it comes. It NEVER FAILS to come, in fact. When I ask for the inspiration, the words, the thoughts to be right, the answers come. It’s miraculous, actually.

I’m not a practicing Catholic because I agree with every law of the Catholic Church. But it is this particular religion which has given me the people and experiences which have brought me thus far in faith, and I will proudly accept the challenge placed before me in prayer to stand with her in support–as I do with my family, my job, my community. I know that it is right to do so because conscience tells me so.

More than all of that, I believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe that it happened, and I believe that because it happened I am saved and forgiven. I really do believe it. And so I want a seat at that table. That table is only memorialized at every Catholic Mass with a consecrated host. I would never want to be without the opportunity to share in that promise. So, I am a practicing Catholic.

I am a practicing Catholic. And by the way, the Catholic church isn’t a building or even an organization or an institution, as a whole. It is all of those things, and I won’t even use this platform to explain the vastness of the social help given through Catholic Charities Association to people of all descriptions, but wholly it is the eyes, hands, feet, hearts, voices and strength of its members. Like me.

Jun17

Every day is Fathers Day…

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Not long ago, I found a letter that my dad wrote to me in April, 1987. The reason for the letter was my high school senior retreat day at Padua High School. It was a beautiful surprise to see my dad’s handwriting again, all confident, cheerful and scrawly, and to “hear” his voice again in those words. When I saved this letter and put it away, I’m sure I never gave his words another thought. The thing is, though, I didn’t have to remember his words, because every single day, he told me the same things in his actions. It amazes me how much his own words mirror the words I used later in his eulogy to describe him and his life. This is vintage Hap, solid advice! And it reminds me that while we may think the most important thing we can say to someone while they’re here is “I love you,” the greater gift may be to say, “I know that you love me.” The letter is pictured here, but difficult to read, so I will transcribe his words: (spoiler alert!! He spills the “secret of life.”)

Mary Beth,

Time for our Father Daughter talk! (Equal billing)

Mary, the whole world is yours if you shut out the negatives. Don’t think the bad of anything. Enjoy your work–your school, now or ever. Please try & be happy with any situation you’re in. I know it sounds stupid but you can make or train yourself to accept & enjoy all challenges. It’s never too hot, too cold, too far, too anything. Don’t be afraid to reach out. I enjoy you & I love you & I want you to be a doer. Mary, honest, the secret of life is to love man and God, don’t dislike, nothing is worth the emotion of hate. I tease you about your loving me. I know you do. I get a lot of mileage out of teasing you about it. It’s really more important to me to know that I love you. You & your sisters have always thought of me & are nice to me, you all know I loved you. What I really want you to realize is how special Dolores Mae is. None of us can comprehend how much she loves. The nicest thing you can ever do for me is to treat mom as the special person she is. Then treat yourself as the special person you are. Reach out & enjoy. Please care enough about the people you know & live with to be a positive influence on their lives. I truly believe you are special. Take whatever school or job you may & love it & enjoy it until the next one. Try to enjoy everything & every one. I wish I had realized much earlier in life how special the gifts of God are. End of lecture. I love you. I will never not love you. -Hap

 

Mar6

The Road Home

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(written October, 2013)
In an educational exercise one October morning, I had been instructed to describe the day’s color. The word which immediately surfaced was lucid. That afternoon was no different: the individual leaves on the arms of autumn trees viewable in high-definition against the clearest blue sky, still dry air, and a sun nearly painful in its brightness, closer to white than yellow. With my mother in the passenger seat next to me, I turned left into the ten-car parking lot of the monument showroom. While our task of picking out the headstone for my recently-deceased father’s grave was…well, a grave one, our moods were as light as the Indian-summer day. I rolled my eyes sardonically, noting that instead of a concrete curb barrier at the head of each parking spot, there was a sample granite grave marker, complete with engraved names and dates. “That’s creepy. I feel like I’m parked on a body,” I said. She laughed good-naturedly: we had suffered enough, and our family was an irreverent lot, even in mourning. “Shall we take our coffee in with us, or leave it in the car?” She asked. We decided to carry our eco-friendly travel mugs inside; I had made it at home, strong and subtly hazel-nutty, and this chore could undoubtedly take a while.
We strolled casually towards the showroom door, taking in our surroundings: this would not be anywhere we’d visit often. Life-sized, bone-white statues of the Holy Family flanked the glass doors, while off to the left a grassy patch incongruously boasted a rough wagon, a slatted-wood cart on wheels, full of cascading flowers. The prairie meets Jerusalem meets the 21st century, where nearby a mega-watt digital sign runs a silent, solemn commercial of sober but satisfied faces. A highly-polished marker on the ground near the door revealed that the business was opened in 1969, the year I was born. The still-living founder’s face was etched onto the stone, and I imagined that this must be an eerie sight for his family. I reached for the heavy door and ushered my mother inside.
We stepped into a wind-chiming, welcoming store, devoid of any discernible scent, hushed but not cold in atmosphere. High-ceilings and full walls of windows made the space seem whitewashed on such a sunny day, almost cheerful. The first visible items were tchotchkes: “God Bless the USA” bumper stickers, Swarovski-crystal one-decade rosaries: “great for travel!” Pewter car-visor clips saying “Bless this trucker” or “Drive safely, someone loves you!” A bowling angel attached to a lapel pin came with a poem about getting closer to a 300 game. Further in, larger and heavier items began to appear: garden statues of St. Francis of Assisi, in his humble robe, gently regarding the birds and animals around him, and small fiberglass benches, designed to look like stone, just big enough for one seat and the diminutive angel perched on the armrest. Here, we were approached by a tall, handsome woman about my mother’s age with a gentle smile and a decidedly tentative “are you ready for any help?”
Since we were ready for help, having no idea how to begin the process of choosing our headstone, we introduced ourselves to Marie, who happened to be the wife of the founder. I decided against asking her if it was unsettling to see her husband’s face on what amounted to a grave-marker when she walked in to work each day. Marie led us with her outstretched arm across the store to an interior wall on which hung dozens of heavy granite rectangles, fully engraved with names, dates, etchings of photographic quality, hearts and flowers. The samples ranged from the size of a large book to the size of a small bed. Some had rough, geography-class-rock borders with quartz-like sparkles, while others were polished like a kitchen countertop with salt and pepper just beneath the glossy surface. Colors ranged from wet putty to the amber of rich Oktoberfest ale, to azure with milky, translucent chips, to the blackest black night, with or without the accompanying stars. Here, by some silent mutual agreement, we became solemn. Somewhere between the veteran’s insignias and the teenaged girl’s senior picture, scratched artfully into her eternal social-media profile picture, we adopted the hushed manner appropriate for those in the presence of the tenderest of souls: the too-soon departed. And isn’t anyone who is loved and missed taken away too soon?
Marie, in her conservatively leopard-printed cardigan and fashionable metallic flats (right up my mother’s alley!) expertly and quietly described our particular options: we couldn’t have a raised stone because my dad’s grave was in the first row near the road at the cemetery. That was fine with me – I had always associated raised headstones with horror movies and Halloween lawn decorations. I was in favor of a low-key, flush-to-the-grass marker. I made a joke about the word “flush,” because my dad’s gravesite happens to be near the restrooms at Holy Cross Cemetery. Marie threw her head back and laughed. We did, however, have size and color options. When my mom asked me for my opinion, I suggested that she choose what she thought Dad would like. Then, I remembered that this one four-inch thick slab of granite would mark the grave which eventually would hold both of my parents. “You’ll be under it too, one day, so pick whatever you think is pretty,” I said. My mom chuckled in acknowledgment as she sipped her coffee, surveying the sample wall, and she and Marie, being contemporaries, opined conspiratorially about stone colors, fonts, and graphics. I deliberately retreated, catching only fragments: Marie, her polished, square fingertips grazing my mom’s elbow and her nose wrinkled, “I hope you don’t like the gold lettering on the Norwegian blue, it just doesn’t look as nice,” and my mom graciously acknowledging that “you sure get lots of ideas by looking at these!”
Half an hour later, in an office with a sage-hued desktop constructed of the same highly-polished granite as the gravestones, we faced Marie as she stood over the left shoulder of a lanky young man in Ray-Ban glasses whose thin fingers raced across the computer keyboard, projecting a mock-up of our headstone onto the wall behind them. After we nodded and murmured our assent, Zack plinked the print button like an ebony piano key and left the room wordlessly. My mom had chosen all the specifics: color, font, a wedding ring with the date of their marriage to be etched in between the names Hap and Dolores, the sentiment “Together Forever with God” at the foot. After signing approval on the invoice, we spent at least twenty minutes chatting further with Marie as if we were long-time family friends.
We all agreed that we enjoyed drip coffee from the pot better than the now-popular K-cups. She and my mom showed each other photos of their grandchildren, a new generation of grandmothers pulling out their iPhones instead of school-photographs. Marie was elated to learn a Nordstrom Rack store had just opened nearby. We could have chatted for hours; we had fun. As she walked us out, back through the store which somehow struck the perfect balance between dignified and cheerful, we agreed to come back soon and shop for less weighty items. There were ornaments and freshly cut flowers for sale, memorial cards for pets and decorative blankets to be tossed casually over the back of a sofa. Racks of cards, religious and secular, stood sentry near seasonally scented candles in pumpkin-shaped glass jars. As we climbed back into my SUV, our empty coffee cups standing upright in my ample handbag, my mom thanked me, remarking in an echo to my own thoughts about what a positive experience it had been. “We’re doing really well,” I thought to myself.
Hours later, driving home alone from a group tennis lesson which had produced equal parts sweat and laughter, an inexplicable and immediate grief welled up inside me and burst forth into the approaching dusk as I sobbed, suddenly and wetly, at sixty-five miles an hour. I still felt that the day, the task completed with my mom, had been fun. But a practical voice in my brain reminded me that I had just picked out my parents’ headstone, and what an obscene chore that was. I missed my dad viscerally; more than that, I realized that at some point in my future, I would walk back inside that showroom’s heavy glass doors, alone or maybe with one of my sisters, to inform them that the final year of the second-deceased could now be engraved onto the Norwegian blue granite she had chosen herself on a lovely October day. I wondered if Marie would still be there, and I thought of good, strong coffee and my mom’s smile, and as I gripped the steering wheel, my knuckles white at ten and two, I wept in fat tears and keening sounds like a child; a child who has lost her parents somewhere.