Ah...parents!

Tonight I spoke with my dear friend Roni who is with her parents in Akron. Her Dad at 87 is in intensive care battling pneumonia, Legionnaires. Her Mom is presenting with symptoms of early stages of Alzheimers. Back home in Bowling Green, sits her husband and son minding her mother-in-law, 95, who has come to live with them for 3 months after suffering a fall in her home in Florida and several weeks of hospitalization. Her husband and his brother are splitting the care of their Mom right now...three months with one and then three months with the other.

So think about this. Roni at 65 and Chuck at 64 have 3 out of 4 parents still alive! And while living their own lives, Chuck still working et al, and being on call for their 3 children and 5 grandchildren they are now caring for 3 aging parents.

It boggles the mind, doesn't it? But that's the reality of the so called baby boomers today. We are caring for our kids' kids and their great-grandparents. Talk about the rubber band generation!!

So how do you deal with the emotions that roil inside of you when you are faced with this incredible task? Who do you cut off first? That sounds cruel but let's face it....something has to give. Do you focus on your parents who raised you, supported you, helped you with your own kids? Or do you look to the future and decide that you have to focus on your grandkids and be there for your own kids?

I don't have any good answers. Both of my parents are gone. My Dad to cancer just months after placing my Mom in a nursing home with Alzheimers. Mom spent 9 years on that ward. I watched her slip away from me and all my siblings. I'm not sure where she went for the years it took her body to finally acquiesce to letting this life go. But I stood vigil while it happened.

What's easier on a child, adult though they may be? To have a parent be "with you" until old age finally eases them into the next life, or to have them leave before their time in your eyes?

All I know is that I am witnessing my friend be swamped with decision-making and feeling overwhelmed by 3 aging parents depending on her.

Is it possible that one can live too long? I think so. What happens to families that have postponed dealing with those God-awful decisions that have to be made about final instructions, plans of what to do if Mom/Dad lives so long they can't take care of themselves? It can rip families apart. We've all seen it.

So tonight I speak with my Mom and Dad, wherever their spirits are, and I tell them how I love them. How I hope that if they had lived longer I would have cared for them in the right manner. That my brothers, sister, and I would have made the right decisions. And I admit to them my relief, that they are at peace and I never had to deal with what my wonderful friend Roni is facing.

Ah, parents. Mine, yours, ours. We came from parents, we are parents, and our children become parents. Do we parent ourselves as well as our kids? Do they parent us? Or is it that it's one continous cycle, where we are children, adults, parents, and children again? All I know is that whatever stage we are, we need to love and be loved.

Reflections of a Grey June

Well, today's the last day of June and I must say I'm not sorry to see it go.  I've been back home on the South Shore of Boston for nearly a month now and have had only 4 days of sun!!  And once again this morning it's misty and grey.

I don't mind misty and grey.  In fact, sometimes it's a welcomed relief from heat and sun.  You can curl up with a great book on a misty day and lose yourself in some historical novel or the latest best seller.  And a misty day is a perfect excuse to pull out my card making supplies and go crazy making cards.  Or sometimes I pull out the sewing machine and get to work on some project that "just has to be done" even though it's been sitting in the closet for months!  But enough is enough!!  Bring on the sun, please.

I think my mood today is a bit misty and grey too.  I've been watching my daughter and her husband rush hither and yon this summer.  She's doing her 2nd year summer associate job at a Boston law firm and he's traveling with his career.  Both are focused and seem to have endless energy.  I feel like a run down battery next to them!

I've reflected lately on my "career".  Or lack thereof.  It's like that line of most forms you fill out:  "Occupation".  It still irks me to write in "homemaker."  It's not that I'm ashamed of it.  It's just so nebulous.  Homemaker.  What is that?  

I did focus totally on making a home.  That's not easy.  How do you quantify it?  I never clocked in or out.  I wasn't salaried.  Never had a yearly evaluation.  I can just see that.  Facing my husband and kids.  "So, let's see.  What were your goals this past year?  Did you make your forecast?  I don't see any numbers here.  How can we determine your profit or loss?"  I've lived in so many apartments and houses I've lost count.  Actually, I haven't!  I've moved 13 times in 37 years.  I've lived in 4 apartments, 2 rented homes in England, and owned 6 homes.  

Hey, now that I see it in print I'm feeling pretty good about myself.  I made all these places a home for myself and my family.  I painted, papered, sewed window treatments, accessorized, cooked countless meals, cleaned, laundered and got the family rolling.  Add to that my working part time some of those years and full time during other years.

I can feel that mist burning off and the grey is lifting from my spirit.  I've had one great and successful career.  Now I just have to come up with a better term than "homemaker".  Domestic Designer?  Family Coach?   Any ideas?

A Day of Warmth

Saturday I spent the day with my sister, sister-in-law, daughter and niece on Nantucket.  My niece is there for two weeks taking an intensive oil painting class.  We took the high speed ferry down and had such a great day.  The sun came out, the air was sparkling, but most of all the five of us shared a day of the warmth deep friendship brings.

It was a "girls" day all the way.  We shopped, we ate, we strolled the streets.  Not sure if guys have days like this but I love them.  There's something about being with other women who share your values and interests that opens the heart.  I find that I can laugh at myself more easily within the embrace of friendship.  We share our souls with each other.  That's a blessing that heals so many hurts.

It was also a blessing because it was generational.  My daughter and niece see things differently than myself, my sister and sister-in-law.  Not in our values, but in the perception of life due to the stage they're in.   They are at the cusp of their futures, we are either in the midst of it all or exiting .  There is more behind us than ahead of us.  That has colored my thoughts a lot recently.  My daughter teases me that I'm "doom & gloom" or in my "when I'm dead and gone" phase and that may be so.  But to me it's a wealth of reflections and insights that I gladly welcome.  I expect to live a long life but part of living that life is embracing where I am in that journey.

So part of the joy of the day was watching that next generation share thoughts with each other. And to relish their ease and enjoyment of spending time with their mothers and aunts.  So many women I know do not have an easy relationship with their daughters.  And yet many others do.  What makes the difference?  What enables a woman to be able to be authentic with her daughter or niece?  I think for me it's acknowledging them as the full person they are right now and the wonderful potential I see in them.  To be interested in their dreams, their challenges, their life.  To treat them with respect and honor them as the wonderful individuals they are becoming. And to share with them who I am.  Not who I think a mother should be or an aunt should be, but as I am, warts and all.  That's why I can laugh at myself with them because they can call me on my idiosyncrasies.  Like my mouth moving whenever I listen to someone talk to me.  Or my inability to pronounce names correctly.  That's when I remind them that: "when I'm dead and gone you'll laugh about that and remember me."  It actually makes me feel valued.  At least they'll have memories of me!!

I was blessed to have some aunts and a step-grandmother who respected me and honored me as I grew into womanhood.  My Mom did in many ways as well.  They held me to a standard that sometimes chafed.  Yet they listened to me.  They offered their opinions to me.  They took the time to make me feel valued.  What a great gift.

So my wonderful day in Nantucket evoked lots of warm feelings.  Of belonging, of mattering, of sharing in the lives of four of the women of my life.  All the warmth that day was not of the sun.

Memorial Day

Today is Memorial Day.  This was always a very big day in my hometown.  We had a parade and it covered all the area cemeteries where the parade would stop, a speech was made, flags were posted,  and Taps played.  I marched in it when I was in 3rd grade, I think.  I was a Bluebird.  That's the beginning group of Campfire Girls.  For me, at that time, it was just a fun experience.  I knew we were honoring our War dead but it had no real meaning for me.

How different it is for me today!  I now reflect on my father's Army service in the European theatre of WWII, my father-in-law's Naval service in the Pacific during WWII, my high school friends' service in Vietnam, and my friends' sons' and daughters' service in the Gulf War and in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As an adult, I can now realize a lot that I didn't as a young kid.  I can now see what costs the War took on my Dad.  He never talked about his experiences while we were growing up.  And I think that was the norm for that generation.  What they had seen and experienced couldn't be put into words, really.  They were home at last and wondering why they made it and so many didn't.  There are now so many articles about PTA, post traumatic syndrome, that the public understands more about war's cost than we did before.  But for me as a kid, I never knew what Dad suffered.  It was only in my adult years that I came to understand how war had affected him and changed him.  It was a surprise and a great honor for us to learn after our father's death, that he had won 5 Bronze Stars.  But it also brought sadness to my heart to realize that he had seen 5 major battles in his time in Europe and therefore so much death and horror.

I know he spoke to me about the Warsaw Ghetto since he was with the first American troops to enter Warsaw.  He was always angry that the Yanks had to wait outside Warsaw while the Russians were given the first entry.  And how appalled he was with what he found.  That and the death camp he liberated.  

Yet these conversations were brief and rare.  And they only occurred after many years had gone by.  My father-in-law is the same.  It's only in recent years that he talks about his experiences in the Pacific Ocean.  The horrible typhoon that his ship went through along with so many others in his fleet.  His being on watch while ships were sinking.  His conversation with a Captain of a ship within his fleet who told him they were going down.  And how years later, on a cruise with my Mother-in-law, he met the wife of that very Captain!!  There are no coincidences!!!  Dad K also wondered often in his life, why he survived when so many didn't.  Mom K always told him that Our Lady was protecting him to bring him to her.

Perhaps these men, who witnessed so much at such a young age, can only now reflect verbally about what those years meant and did.  With the passage of years comes wisdom hopefully.  I know for my Dad it also brought self-forgiveness.  The "survivor guilt" was finally let go.  They served honestly for a cause that needed to be won.  Freedom.  The right to live life as best you can without tyranny.  And so in their later years, each man saw the honor of what they did as well as the reality of what happened to them.  

As a mother, I never saw my son go off to war.  I was blessed in that.  My friend, Roni, saw her son go off to Iraq twice.  I saw her worry, her pain, and her incredible faith tested.  Today, war is immediate for all of us.  The media brings it into our home as it is happening.  So what is better?  To know what is going on today or to not have explicit visions daily but only what your mind can imagine as it was in WWII?  Both are horrible realities.  I can only imagine what price mothers and fathers all over our country paid as they sent sons and daughters off to all the wars. 

So here's the conclusion I've come to.  All of us pay a price whenever our country engages in War.  It's not just the soldiers who have to do the job.  It's everyone of us.  Either on the front lines or supporting from back home.  Every soldier's life has to matter to all of us.  Because without their presence, we wouldn't have what we do, here, in the USA.  War is a reality.  No one wants it.  But history shows it's always present.  We need to understand what we are fighting for and speak for or against it according to our conscience.  But we all have the responsibility to support our brave men and women.

This Memorial Day I remember all who have given their lives throughout our Nation's history.  May we always honor them as they so richly deserve.  And to my Dad, I thank you not only for the sacrifice you made in your 20's but for the long years of pain you suffered because of that service.  Be at peace forever more Dad.

The Loss of a Friend

I lost a friend yesterday.  I got the call early this morning.  Pam, my neighbor and friend, had died suddenly yesterday of a heart attack.  She was in Lexington, KY visiting an Aunt and Uncle and collapsed while leaving a hotel to take her Uncle to a late lunch.

What do you say when a friend is taken so suddenly?  We were not bosom buddies.  We were living on the same street.  She moved in a year after me.  I remember the day, because it was right after Christmas, and I took a tray of sandwiches and desserts to her.  Easy for me.  We had had a Christmas reception/open house for my son and his new wife so that our friends here in Bowling Green, KY could meet them.  They had married in Bolivia and so we wanted to introduce our new daughter to all our friends here.  So it was no effort on my part at all to bring her some food.

I remember her thankful smile and her bewilderment that befalls all of us who are in the midst of a move.

Pam and I started walking in the morning together but her schedule and my sleeping late! soon curtailed that.  She joined the Newcomers Club that I was active in, and she made friends left and right.  Pam loved books so the book groups within the Newcomers soon had her presence.  Pretty soon she was Co-Chair and kept all the paperwork straight for our monthly Book Discussion Group.  She also joined our Volunteer Group at the Kentucky Museum Library on Western Kentucky University's campus.  She couldn't meet as easily on Wednesdays as some of us could, and so she switched to Tuesdays on her own and worked tirelessly on special collections, old children books, architectural drawings etc.

She became involved with the Hobson House at Riverview which is a beautiful Victorian Home here in Bowling Green that was started just as the Civil War broke out.

Pam had just joined my evening Book Group I belong to, at my urging.  Pam was the type of reader that absorbed so much and then very quietly shared her insights.  She was such a counterpart to me.  I'm jumping in, running my mouth off, always quick with an observation.  Pam sat back, urged others to share, and then dropped a pearl of wisdom into the pool of our thoughts.  I loved her for that.  I envied her surety.  I admired her quiet convictions.

Last Monday night we went to the Words and Wine group I urged her to join.  She had participated at my house the month before.  We drove up to the hostess's house and Pam stopped to stare at the house.  Her eyes misted over.  She told me it was a replica of the house she had  grown up in.  And it reminded her of all she missed: her parents, the life she had lived in her home in Lexington.  Once again, she shared her insights on our book, Mr. Pip.  She had loved it and was full of questions about how we had felt.  That was the Pam I grew to know and love.  "Oh, Mary Lou....."  that's how so many of our conversations began.

We talked about our gardening, our kids.  We kidded each other about who was away more from our homes: me with my summers in Massachusetts or her heading back to Lexington or Indiana to visit family.  And we acknowledged to each other how blessed we were to be able to go see family.

I'm still numb to the fact that this woman who I saw once or twice a month is gone.  I do not have the depth of loss that so many people here in town have.  But a loss is a loss, is it not?  A vibrant, young woman has left so many.  As one woman said to me when I called her with the news: "She has left a huge hole."  

Pam, my friend, thank you for all you gave me and all you were.  If you have taught me anything, it's to be authentic.  Stay true to who I am.  Don't waste time on matters that don't matter.  Cherish life.  For you have shown that it is fragile and brief and we have an obligation to make it count.  I will miss you.

Creativity in the Garden

Yesterday I spent most of the day in the company of several women from our Newcomer's Club. We went to a wonderfully creative garden shop, The Garden Patch, in a neighboring town.  the owner has antiques and rummage sale finds scattered around her garden shop grounds filled with plants, flowers and all sorts of items.  You step onto her acreage and your mind spins with the possibilities of being creative in the garden.

Our group gathered various plants and flowers and made container pots for our yards and then settled down for a picnic.  What companionship!!  I spent time with a new member, Karen, who's just moved here from home back in Indiana.  What a difficult move for her.  She and her husband had their retirement home all built awaiting them.  A log cabin deep in the countryside.  And they had to sell it and leave all that was familiar to them in order for him to keep his job.  Karen also had to leave her mother behind.  She had been giving care to her Mom part time and sorely misses those moments.  Our table talked about all the moves we have made and how each one presents its own difficulties.  Yet each one also presents unique moments of opportunity.

I made my first move away from home 30 years ago!  I thought my life was over.  Quite dramatic I was.  I sobbed.  How could I leave my parents, my siblings, my life long friends???  How could I shuffle off to Buffalo??  I had two little ones, 2.5 yr old son and a 4 month old daughter!  I needed my Mom.  How would I care for those two without family and friends to offer support??  Curses on my husband's wonderful career opportunity.

Well I have an older brother who often extends his wisdom to his younger siblings.  And he told me I really had to give my husband a chance at this opportunity since he had stayed around my family for the 7 years we had been married.  So give him 7 years and come home.  So I rubbed my eyes dry, sniffed, and grudgingly told my husband I would go but just for 7 years!

Thirty years later I am still living predominately out of state.  We do have a small condo back home and I get there for the summers.  But for 30 years I have lived in 3 different states and in England.

Each move is a wrench.  Each move is another step away from my home state.  Each move is like digging up a plant and dumping it into a container until you can dig a proper hole for it in your garden.

Yet, I do settle into the new garden and I have flourished and bloomed.  In fact, I think I wouldn't be the person I am today if I hadn't moved away and discovered how to establish my own root system.

So I felt Karen's pain but also know that she too will find a way to settle into the patch of the world in which she now finds herself.  Losses force us to examine what remains.  Loss of the known home, family and support network, pushes us to look within and find out what strength is there that we can call upon.  Like the plant that goes without water for awhile, it will draw from deep in the soil to replenish itself.  Yet water must come or else it will die.  So reaching out to others is necessary to help one discover nourishment.

My friends here in Bowling Green, KY feed my soul.  They are like plant food.  They share, they enable me to establish roots here.  When I'm stressed, they step in and hold me up.  They are the gardeners of my soul along with my family back home in Massachusetts and all my friends that enrich my life.  My garden is full of creative women who have mastered the knack of replanting themselves!

The Company of Women

Today I returned to my faith group after being away for two weeks.  What a remarkable group of women.  

We have been reading Joyce Rupp's book May I Have This Dance?  and I am always so grateful for the insights of these women who share their faith.

Today we were discussing "June" in the book and how we seek God.  We were sharing our thoughts about what drew us to seek God and how we often don't think about God seeking us.  I am always conscious of when I deliberately seek out God.  What I came away with today was all the ways I seek Him/Her without realizing it.  How there's so much more to seeking God then just praying to Him/Her.

Jan is one of our members and she so often has such words of wisdom.  Today she inspired so many of us with her reflection on how her meditation went at the end of the chapter.  The author asks the reader to meditate on your home of the heart.  To build that home, to put certain items into it.  Jan talked of how her home was made of glass, had a fireplace in it before the author even suggested it!  And then she spoke words that reverberated throughout many of us:  "My home is at the top of the mountain where I can view the Great Divide."  It was a simple statement of fact for Jan.  She loves the mountains; feels close to God in them and so for her it was natural to find herself there.  What struck so many of us was her choice of words "The Great Divide."  See!  I put them in caps!

What animated discussion we had.  Many of us envy her (in the best way possible!) of her being able to see the Great Divide.  Yet Jan was amazed at all we read into it.

Now I live by symbols.  I love them.  They affirm me; guide me; comfort me.  So I visualized immediately the symbolism of the words.  Jan could gaze upon the point in her life where all that came before explained all that came after.  She had reached that point in her spiritual life perhaps, where she had crossed that Great Divide.  The questions have been mostly answered.  Some may linger, but her God has led her to a point where she can gaze out with clear eyes and full heart.  The questions don't matter as much as the knowledge that there are answers...and they will come because God is with her.

What a momentous moment for Jan!!  What inspiration for us who are still climbing up that mountain range never sure when we'll find that Great Divide we can cross over.  And what strength for those of us who are on the lip of that Great Divide and hovering over placing our foot down on the other side.

Women's Faith groups are such incredible melting pots of life experiences, reflections and questions.  I have grown so much through my participation in them.  I can share with these women from all over the country who happen to be right here, right now, my inner fears, thoughts and convictions.  They listen.  They share their similar experiences and all the time God moves between us.  Sometimes with a sigh in the ear, sometimes with a nudge in the ribs, sometimes with an outright laugh.  And many times with a consoling arm around the shoulders as a weight is lifted off one's soul and placed on the table before us.

Today I give thanks to these women who walk next to me.  They lead me, they counsel me, they comfort me and most of all they believe in me.  What empowerment.  What grace. What a blessing.