I've mainly:
- worked
- fed kids
- worked
- seen Jamie through another big heart scare
- worked some more
I sense a theme... At any rate, things are better than last month here in Wafolandia.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Retirement? Or Depression? Or just a contemplative silence...
I am not sure which these quiet passing months signal.
I've mainly:
I sense a theme... At any rate, things are better than last month here in Wafolandia.
I've mainly:
I sense a theme... At any rate, things are better than last month here in Wafolandia.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
I am from
I haven't done a meme in a long time, but Mr. Show of The Jason Show posted one that I liked. Template from Loulou's Views.
I am from flip-flops, from Cheerios, and mountain lakes.
I am from the suburbs, concrete slab patios, aluminum window frames, the salty smell of a rare rain.
I am from pruned roses, green and manicured lawns in the desert, and crepe paper in the cultural hall, but also from wild buttercups, deep canyons, quaking aspen, and high, cirrus clouds.
I am from Monday night board games and vintage movies, from The Philadelphia Story and The Bells of St. Mary's. From Ragtime Cowboy Joe, Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam, and Let Us All Press On.
From four-part, 4/4 harmony in a major key.
I am from horsey laughter and scripture quotes. I am one of the booper sisters.
I am from Mormons and Hosanna! and handcart reenactments. From 2-year food storage and canning tomatoes and crisp white shirts and a quilted scripture cover.
I'm the adopted one born in Los Angeles, and also from chicken-and-broccoli casserole and ambrosia salad and a dusty antler rack on a cabin wall.
From brilliant sisters and a retreating brother. I'm the Bishop's wild youngest child - the apostate. I'm from walking to the library and cello lessons and Christmas lights shining through sheer curtains.
I am in that photo of 3 girls in a red canoe, taken right before we capsized. That beauty in the cloche and fur collar in that picture at the back is my grandmother, and this one is my grandfather taken right before the Great War. The one with 30 people posing in Sunday clothes? That's my family.
I am from the sound of a fiddle by a fire, from the smell of toasted marshmallows, a river rushing through pine trees, and the creak of a battered wooden chair.
I am from flip-flops, from Cheerios, and mountain lakes.
I am from the suburbs, concrete slab patios, aluminum window frames, the salty smell of a rare rain.
I am from pruned roses, green and manicured lawns in the desert, and crepe paper in the cultural hall, but also from wild buttercups, deep canyons, quaking aspen, and high, cirrus clouds.
I am from Monday night board games and vintage movies, from The Philadelphia Story and The Bells of St. Mary's. From Ragtime Cowboy Joe, Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam, and Let Us All Press On.
From four-part, 4/4 harmony in a major key.
I am from horsey laughter and scripture quotes. I am one of the booper sisters.
I am from Mormons and Hosanna! and handcart reenactments. From 2-year food storage and canning tomatoes and crisp white shirts and a quilted scripture cover.
I'm the adopted one born in Los Angeles, and also from chicken-and-broccoli casserole and ambrosia salad and a dusty antler rack on a cabin wall.
From brilliant sisters and a retreating brother. I'm the Bishop's wild youngest child - the apostate. I'm from walking to the library and cello lessons and Christmas lights shining through sheer curtains.
I am in that photo of 3 girls in a red canoe, taken right before we capsized. That beauty in the cloche and fur collar in that picture at the back is my grandmother, and this one is my grandfather taken right before the Great War. The one with 30 people posing in Sunday clothes? That's my family.
I am from the sound of a fiddle by a fire, from the smell of toasted marshmallows, a river rushing through pine trees, and the creak of a battered wooden chair.
Monday, May 30, 2011
This is NOT a post
...it's a post-it.
I cannot go online at work. This has changed my online relationships and interactions greatly, particularly blog-wise. At home I choose parenting, but clearly at work I don't always choose work. Unless coerced.
My employer is benefitting, presumably, from their rules. But it doesn't exactly make me like it there.
I cannot go online at work. This has changed my online relationships and interactions greatly, particularly blog-wise. At home I choose parenting, but clearly at work I don't always choose work. Unless coerced.
My employer is benefitting, presumably, from their rules. But it doesn't exactly make me like it there.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Scoliosis
I really hate talking about my back.
In Jr. High, I remember being both impressed and super-depressed that a kid in orchestra was literary enough to nickname me "Quasimodo".
Nobody likes being different.
My parents never wanted to talk about it or give me language to deal with it. When the school called them in to talk about possible back therapies or surgeries, their response was shame, and lecturing me on good posture. But. But...it's hard to blame them. My mom grew up having survived polio. Her right leg was withered and her foot was clubbed. Having powered through a life of self-consciousness, of COURSE she wasn't going to allow her adopted baby to whine about a little spinal pain and some teasing. Nor would they spend money trying to change how God made me.
So I looked hunched and walked a little funny and tried to stand up straighter.
When I was a vocal music major in college, my department called me in. Together, the staff had decided to add a little money onto my scholarship to pay for some physical therapy and improve my singer's posture. And while I was so touched by that gesture, I was also deeply, painfully shamed that my problem was so obvious that they had talked about it in meetings.
Whenever I've started a new yoga class, or seen a new doctor, especially related to my spine, I immediately return to feelings of shame and embarrassment: I have a problem people can see just by looking at me. Sometimes they ask about it, and I have a tough time answering in a detached way. It's like I want to blind the world rather than have them tell me they can see my problem.
It hurts. Constant, like a bad tooth, but familiar. Occasionally that bad tooth turns into a screaming nerve ending...but usually everything returns to general malaise...particularly if I do a little yoga every day.
And then...yesterday my MD suggested that I investigate breast reduction surgery to alleviate the pain.
Huh.
I have had big boobs since puberty: 34DD until I had children. Post-children: 34FF - circus/porn-sized.
But even though they are big, boobs didn't give me scoliosis. However, they could have contributed to how my back deals with gravity. I'll always have a curvy spine, but possibly something as simple (ha!) as surgery could change how my back FEELS. Forever!
We'll see. I'm freaked out, but also hopeful that I may NOT be living with constant back pain.
Wish me luck!
In Jr. High, I remember being both impressed and super-depressed that a kid in orchestra was literary enough to nickname me "Quasimodo".
Nobody likes being different.
My parents never wanted to talk about it or give me language to deal with it. When the school called them in to talk about possible back therapies or surgeries, their response was shame, and lecturing me on good posture. But. But...it's hard to blame them. My mom grew up having survived polio. Her right leg was withered and her foot was clubbed. Having powered through a life of self-consciousness, of COURSE she wasn't going to allow her adopted baby to whine about a little spinal pain and some teasing. Nor would they spend money trying to change how God made me.
So I looked hunched and walked a little funny and tried to stand up straighter.
When I was a vocal music major in college, my department called me in. Together, the staff had decided to add a little money onto my scholarship to pay for some physical therapy and improve my singer's posture. And while I was so touched by that gesture, I was also deeply, painfully shamed that my problem was so obvious that they had talked about it in meetings.
Whenever I've started a new yoga class, or seen a new doctor, especially related to my spine, I immediately return to feelings of shame and embarrassment: I have a problem people can see just by looking at me. Sometimes they ask about it, and I have a tough time answering in a detached way. It's like I want to blind the world rather than have them tell me they can see my problem.
It hurts. Constant, like a bad tooth, but familiar. Occasionally that bad tooth turns into a screaming nerve ending...but usually everything returns to general malaise...particularly if I do a little yoga every day.
And then...yesterday my MD suggested that I investigate breast reduction surgery to alleviate the pain.
Huh.
I have had big boobs since puberty: 34DD until I had children. Post-children: 34FF - circus/porn-sized.
But even though they are big, boobs didn't give me scoliosis. However, they could have contributed to how my back deals with gravity. I'll always have a curvy spine, but possibly something as simple (ha!) as surgery could change how my back FEELS. Forever!
We'll see. I'm freaked out, but also hopeful that I may NOT be living with constant back pain.
Wish me luck!
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Resonance
It’s been 6 months since my adopted dad died. And I haven’t been able to write much about him, not just since he died, but for many years before he contracted Parkinson’s. Some of that is a combination of grief and estrangement, and some of that is guilt for the many ways I was never the child he wanted me to be, and some of that is that he is and has been a very tough person to do justice to.
My father was a good person.
That just doesn’t give those words enough resonance, so let me say it in a different way: my father was a Good Person.
And because he was so busy being so very, very good, in a way I never knew enough about him as a person, other than that if there was something on behalf of others that needed doing, my father was going to be there with his hands outstretched. It’s hard to explain how relentlessly flawless he seemed.
Dad was very religious. Our days started with scripture study and ended with prayer, and our weeks were often spent studying and volunteering for church service. Among other church roles, dad spent 5 years of my puberty/teens as a Mormon bishop, which in adapted terminology is like being the minister or pastor. Mormons don’t have a theological education or ministerial training program, per se, although some of the weekly 3-hour church sessions include priesthood leadership classes for men. Being a bishop is, therefore and like all church roles, a lay-person’s calling. However, I’ve never known anybody better suited to that job: if someone needed a bed to sleep in while their marriage fell apart, they spent a night or five in our basement. If there was a flood, if somebody’s car broke down, if someone was ill, my father was there, calm, and thoughtful, and listening, and infinitely helpful.
I’ve been thinking recently, both as a parent and as his child, about a disciplinary concept he used a lot, which was to remind us that whatever we did, good or bad, had resonance in the rest of our lives and the lives of everyone to whom we were connected. For me, this really stuck, and the results were not so great, as they fed my already strong sense of depression and outsider-ness. While I had probably a usual number of parent/child run-ins, this sense of resonance made me think that every infraction committed was permanently blackening the person I was becoming and infecting those around me. The voices that praised me (and there were enough of these) seemed nearly silent, while the voices that blamed me seemed very loud.
Probably there are people who can resolve to do better and succeed easily, but I’ve never had those skills. It’s taken me years to find my inner mettle and to find the person within of whom I am proud rather than guilty – and to stop covering that guilt with a mixture of defiance and sarcasm. I now think that dad was probably trying to help us build strong characters amplifying our strengths, not remind us that our characters were going to be comprised of the mess resulting from every bad judgment, self-serving lie, and half-cocked argument we’d held. But because I thought of myself as bad and unworthy, I didn’t have a healthy way to expunge those feelings of guilt.
Also, because the way I was supposed to heal my feelings of unworthiness was through the Mormon path of confession/forgiveness to the bishop, which meant confessing my guilt and doubts to my father, I ended up avoiding what possibly would have been cathartic in that way, choosing instead to avoid any cause to talk to him as his congregant. This may not have been as cathartic as I imagine - I am not sure what this deeply religious person who was also my father might have done with doubt-riddled me when he put on the confessor hat.*
I miss him. My siblings each have seemed to try hard to be the same kind of person: infinitely good. I have to confess that, while I admire that strength and devotion to a path of hyper-vigilant excellence, it’s occasionally a bit irritating in a sibling. It’s lately occurred to me that my mother, who, while averagely good, isn’t a deeply Good Person in the same way (interesting, vivacious, fun, and prone to emotional intensity, yes), has been discovering her own level without the constant excellence-by-example my father provided. I’m sure she misses him tremendously, but I can see that she’s also more her own self than I’ve ever known her. This has been difficult, but also very interesting.
I’d like to think I can parent my kids in a way that organically evolves as they get older. I have no fear that they’ll think of me as exceptionally Good. Hopefully they won’t think of me primarily as Muddled, but that’s at least a fairly human example. At any rate, I’d like to think that I can grow my relationship with them to encompass their ever expanding intellect and sophistication – remaining both Mom and person, and that I can help them build characters that acknowledge the possibility of what occasionally may feel like endless mistakes without the weight of endless resonance.
* Not a literal hat
My father was a good person.
That just doesn’t give those words enough resonance, so let me say it in a different way: my father was a Good Person.
And because he was so busy being so very, very good, in a way I never knew enough about him as a person, other than that if there was something on behalf of others that needed doing, my father was going to be there with his hands outstretched. It’s hard to explain how relentlessly flawless he seemed.
Dad was very religious. Our days started with scripture study and ended with prayer, and our weeks were often spent studying and volunteering for church service. Among other church roles, dad spent 5 years of my puberty/teens as a Mormon bishop, which in adapted terminology is like being the minister or pastor. Mormons don’t have a theological education or ministerial training program, per se, although some of the weekly 3-hour church sessions include priesthood leadership classes for men. Being a bishop is, therefore and like all church roles, a lay-person’s calling. However, I’ve never known anybody better suited to that job: if someone needed a bed to sleep in while their marriage fell apart, they spent a night or five in our basement. If there was a flood, if somebody’s car broke down, if someone was ill, my father was there, calm, and thoughtful, and listening, and infinitely helpful.
I’ve been thinking recently, both as a parent and as his child, about a disciplinary concept he used a lot, which was to remind us that whatever we did, good or bad, had resonance in the rest of our lives and the lives of everyone to whom we were connected. For me, this really stuck, and the results were not so great, as they fed my already strong sense of depression and outsider-ness. While I had probably a usual number of parent/child run-ins, this sense of resonance made me think that every infraction committed was permanently blackening the person I was becoming and infecting those around me. The voices that praised me (and there were enough of these) seemed nearly silent, while the voices that blamed me seemed very loud.
Probably there are people who can resolve to do better and succeed easily, but I’ve never had those skills. It’s taken me years to find my inner mettle and to find the person within of whom I am proud rather than guilty – and to stop covering that guilt with a mixture of defiance and sarcasm. I now think that dad was probably trying to help us build strong characters amplifying our strengths, not remind us that our characters were going to be comprised of the mess resulting from every bad judgment, self-serving lie, and half-cocked argument we’d held. But because I thought of myself as bad and unworthy, I didn’t have a healthy way to expunge those feelings of guilt.
Also, because the way I was supposed to heal my feelings of unworthiness was through the Mormon path of confession/forgiveness to the bishop, which meant confessing my guilt and doubts to my father, I ended up avoiding what possibly would have been cathartic in that way, choosing instead to avoid any cause to talk to him as his congregant. This may not have been as cathartic as I imagine - I am not sure what this deeply religious person who was also my father might have done with doubt-riddled me when he put on the confessor hat.*
I miss him. My siblings each have seemed to try hard to be the same kind of person: infinitely good. I have to confess that, while I admire that strength and devotion to a path of hyper-vigilant excellence, it’s occasionally a bit irritating in a sibling. It’s lately occurred to me that my mother, who, while averagely good, isn’t a deeply Good Person in the same way (interesting, vivacious, fun, and prone to emotional intensity, yes), has been discovering her own level without the constant excellence-by-example my father provided. I’m sure she misses him tremendously, but I can see that she’s also more her own self than I’ve ever known her. This has been difficult, but also very interesting.
I’d like to think I can parent my kids in a way that organically evolves as they get older. I have no fear that they’ll think of me as exceptionally Good. Hopefully they won’t think of me primarily as Muddled, but that’s at least a fairly human example. At any rate, I’d like to think that I can grow my relationship with them to encompass their ever expanding intellect and sophistication – remaining both Mom and person, and that I can help them build characters that acknowledge the possibility of what occasionally may feel like endless mistakes without the weight of endless resonance.
* Not a literal hat
Friday, January 7, 2011
Abundancherelish!
The end of the year seems to always bring around a slog of Deep Thoughts about the Big Picture for me - and maybe for you as well? And really, I think I've been big picturing it for two crappy years. Very very heavy. And dull.
Last year I made some resolutions I probably didn't keep. Something about doing everything "better". Since that, in retrospect, was something of a fail, I'm going to try for this instead, except I need a word for it. Something about cherishing and relishing the abundance that already exists in my life.
Situationally, I hope 2009 and 2010 don't recur EVER. But even if they do, I am RICH with friendships, love, family, comforts of all kinds, and tremendous luck in my circumstances in ways over which I have no control but should acknowledge with more embrace-iness, to be sure.
So this year? This year is ABUNDANCHERELISH year! And theoretically, I'm going to try to have at least one "Things That Rock/ed" post per month. Which would be both 12 more positive posts per year than I achieved last year, and also might motivate me to blog with happier thoughts and fingers.
Wish me luck!
Last year I made some resolutions I probably didn't keep. Something about doing everything "better". Since that, in retrospect, was something of a fail, I'm going to try for this instead, except I need a word for it. Something about cherishing and relishing the abundance that already exists in my life.
Situationally, I hope 2009 and 2010 don't recur EVER. But even if they do, I am RICH with friendships, love, family, comforts of all kinds, and tremendous luck in my circumstances in ways over which I have no control but should acknowledge with more embrace-iness, to be sure.
So this year? This year is ABUNDANCHERELISH year! And theoretically, I'm going to try to have at least one "Things That Rock/ed" post per month. Which would be both 12 more positive posts per year than I achieved last year, and also might motivate me to blog with happier thoughts and fingers.
Wish me luck!
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Give!
I volunteer with the Sexual Assault Resource Center (SARC) of Oregon (USA).
SARC is one of thousands of international organizations who (on miniscule budgets) provide advocacy, case management, funding access, education, counseling, and a lot of different kinds of individualized support to current and past survivors of sexual trauma.
Currently, my agency is in the midst of a fundraising blitz, and I've been badgering my family, friends, co-workers, and sundry strangers to donate time or money to this cause.
[Ahem. I'm including the link to my current fundraising page, but encourage you to donate where YOUR community is most impacted.]
There are organizations in every state in the US, every province in Canada, and most major cities globally who focus on helping the survivors of sexual assault rebuild themselves and navigate their lives post-trauma.
Sexual assault is an ongoing epidemic more likely to impact someone you know than heart disease, cancer, or car crash.
Every survivor deserves to receive careful, thoughtful support and advocacy. I can attest from my own experience as an advocate that programs like these fill a crucial gap between experiencing an assault and trying to navigate the legal and health systems and services, and psychological and emotional healing process.
I wish there were programs that fought the cause of sexual assault better, and could certainly opine about how violence against women is something MEN need to take ownership of and FIX ALREADY. However, I am proud of the amazing women and men I've met in this field who do the work every day to help with the aftermath.
While April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month in the USA, there is ample reason to donate your money or time now: despite the fact that sexual assault reporting appears to be on a slight decline for most age groups, reported sexual assault of college-age women is at an all time high. Now is the time agencies like mine are gearing up to provide safety training and information to high school and college-age women and men.
President Obama's new Office on Violence Against Women provides a list of US resources (one per state) who can point those desiring to donate or volunteer to appropriate community agencies:
http://www.ovw.usdoj.gov/statesexual.htm
International agencies include Stop Violence Against Women.
If you know anybody who has experienced assault, you have seen (or felt) the devestating heartbreak and pain caused by sexual violence. Please take a minute today to think about this epidemic and what you can do to help.
SARC is one of thousands of international organizations who (on miniscule budgets) provide advocacy, case management, funding access, education, counseling, and a lot of different kinds of individualized support to current and past survivors of sexual trauma.
Currently, my agency is in the midst of a fundraising blitz, and I've been badgering my family, friends, co-workers, and sundry strangers to donate time or money to this cause.
[Ahem. I'm including the link to my current fundraising page, but encourage you to donate where YOUR community is most impacted.]
There are organizations in every state in the US, every province in Canada, and most major cities globally who focus on helping the survivors of sexual assault rebuild themselves and navigate their lives post-trauma.
Sexual assault is an ongoing epidemic more likely to impact someone you know than heart disease, cancer, or car crash.
Every survivor deserves to receive careful, thoughtful support and advocacy. I can attest from my own experience as an advocate that programs like these fill a crucial gap between experiencing an assault and trying to navigate the legal and health systems and services, and psychological and emotional healing process.
I wish there were programs that fought the cause of sexual assault better, and could certainly opine about how violence against women is something MEN need to take ownership of and FIX ALREADY. However, I am proud of the amazing women and men I've met in this field who do the work every day to help with the aftermath.
While April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month in the USA, there is ample reason to donate your money or time now: despite the fact that sexual assault reporting appears to be on a slight decline for most age groups, reported sexual assault of college-age women is at an all time high. Now is the time agencies like mine are gearing up to provide safety training and information to high school and college-age women and men.
President Obama's new Office on Violence Against Women provides a list of US resources (one per state) who can point those desiring to donate or volunteer to appropriate community agencies:
http://www.ovw.usdoj.gov/statesexual.htm
International agencies include Stop Violence Against Women.
If you know anybody who has experienced assault, you have seen (or felt) the devestating heartbreak and pain caused by sexual violence. Please take a minute today to think about this epidemic and what you can do to help.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
April, May, June, July...
Somebody graduated from Kindergarten. 
Somebody likes the color pink. Still.
Imitating a cricket.
Himself.
My immediate family. Or most of it.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Dad
So...my dad died on July 6. He was 81 and had been fighting Parkinson's Disease for over 10 years. His death was sudden, and not directly related (we think) to the Parkinson's. And I am pretty sure that at some point I'll have more to say about this. But for now, all I can say is that I am very very tired of feeling sad. I could use a bit more dancing."If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,
And from thy slender store
Two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and from the dole
Buy Hyacinths to feed the soul."
~ Sheikh Muslih-uddin Saadi Shirazi ( The Gulistan of Saadi, 1270 )
Monday, May 10, 2010
And the Best/Worst Mom goes to...
Mother's Day was pretty good: Milo gave me his first wholly hand-written card "YOU ARE THE BEST MOM IN THE WHOLE WORLD". Awesome. This was THEN, of course, followed immediately by a major fit during which he screamed "you are the WORST MOM EVER if you don't find me a chocolate croissant for breakfast".
Did you catch that? Double SCORE! By doing NOTHING I get Two Championship Titles!!!
Zel only called me stupid a few times, in honor of my special day. Because that kid? Is 3-years-worth-of-crass. She tells her loving family, friends, and - to my immense pride - complete strangers that they are poop heads. Or stupid. Or that they can poop on their stupid heads. Or stupid on their poop heads. Which is basically a barrel full of awesome.
I keep hearing (and practicing) the "ignore it and it will stop" philosophy. We've tried the other stuff, the "we don't talk to other people like that", and even the "I think you need to spend some time in your room, young lady" stuff...so now I'm trying the ignoring it route. Sorry, people at the grocery store/park/school/doctor's office. She's just a little er, I don't know. Mainly, just don't cross the 3-year-old.
Jamie made me a pretty amazing breakfast in bed, and then we all went for a family bike ride on the river esplanade in Portland AND a hike in the hills. More awesome.
I also contacted my: adopted mom (she liked the flowers I sent her), birth mom (hope she liked the song Zel half sang on their answering machine), birth grandmother (very nice, and even SHE has seen Avatar - I am completely alone in my Avatarlessness, and yes I know it's overrated, but still...), birth step-mother (another message, because she is a very awesome, very patient, complete workaholic), and mother-in-law (ditto flowers).
The person I couldn't call, of course, was my little mama, my oldest sister and mother stand-in. But I spent some of the day thinking about her and all the ways she did a lot of de facto parenting of me. And thinking of/reaching out to her kids on what must have been a day similarly full of bittersweet.
For maybe the first time in my life, I think about Mother's Day as a holiday for me as a parent, and not strictly for the many many mothers in my life. Not that I don't celebrate them, but I think I finally see myself as a member of their ranks. I'm not sure why it took me 6 years of being a mother to get here, but woo! Apparently I'm the Worst Mother Ever, but DEFINITELY it was MY day to shine at it!
Did you catch that? Double SCORE! By doing NOTHING I get Two Championship Titles!!!
Zel only called me stupid a few times, in honor of my special day. Because that kid? Is 3-years-worth-of-crass. She tells her loving family, friends, and - to my immense pride - complete strangers that they are poop heads. Or stupid. Or that they can poop on their stupid heads. Or stupid on their poop heads. Which is basically a barrel full of awesome.
I keep hearing (and practicing) the "ignore it and it will stop" philosophy. We've tried the other stuff, the "we don't talk to other people like that", and even the "I think you need to spend some time in your room, young lady" stuff...so now I'm trying the ignoring it route. Sorry, people at the grocery store/park/school/doctor's office. She's just a little er, I don't know. Mainly, just don't cross the 3-year-old.
Jamie made me a pretty amazing breakfast in bed, and then we all went for a family bike ride on the river esplanade in Portland AND a hike in the hills. More awesome.
I also contacted my: adopted mom (she liked the flowers I sent her), birth mom (hope she liked the song Zel half sang on their answering machine), birth grandmother (very nice, and even SHE has seen Avatar - I am completely alone in my Avatarlessness, and yes I know it's overrated, but still...), birth step-mother (another message, because she is a very awesome, very patient, complete workaholic), and mother-in-law (ditto flowers).
The person I couldn't call, of course, was my little mama, my oldest sister and mother stand-in. But I spent some of the day thinking about her and all the ways she did a lot of de facto parenting of me. And thinking of/reaching out to her kids on what must have been a day similarly full of bittersweet.
For maybe the first time in my life, I think about Mother's Day as a holiday for me as a parent, and not strictly for the many many mothers in my life. Not that I don't celebrate them, but I think I finally see myself as a member of their ranks. I'm not sure why it took me 6 years of being a mother to get here, but woo! Apparently I'm the Worst Mother Ever, but DEFINITELY it was MY day to shine at it!
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Broken
My son goes to Catholic School.
And in a couple of years, barring a miracle, I guess my daughter will go to Catholic School too. And the fact is, Catholic School would have been right up there with Druid School before our lives as parents intersected our lives as citizens in a pathetic school system.
I'm not an educator or a public administrator. I've got ONE kid in ONE school. So this rant is pretty personal and focuses on that ONE experience.
Nevertheless, there's a LOT I could rant about when it comes to WHY we chose Catholic School. Such as how, by the time we settled on parochial school for Milo, we'd already been completely flattened by a difficult year personally, and then again by our perceived failure of both the local public school and then of the public school lottery system, through which, theoretically, we could have sent Milo to one of the slightly better public focus or charter schools.
Anecdotally, I repeatedly hear my parent-friends and neighbors kvetch about how the Portland public school system thunderingly fails to provide their children a good, challenging space for that child to reach their education potential. That's a mouthful, isn't it? But it seems to be true: most schools here in Portland seem to feel they are successful if they've provided the mean basics to about half of their students.
Most schools have no art, music, PE, or any other instructors for subjects deemed "Extra". And the No Child Left Behind Act hasn't seemed to make any kind of impact toward "improvement" other than to make the schools dramatically reduce anything not accounted for by that program.
Our local school, which has always been ranked "Low" (on a scale of Unacceptable > In Need of Improvement > Low > Satisfactory > Strong > Exceptional > Outstanding), is still "Low". Their test scores are still some of the lowest in the city. Except now they also don't have any of the Arts or other extras to sweeten the day...
And when I spoke to our local school principal about my fears regarding their rankings and ratings, about the anecdotal negatives we'd heard from our neighbors regarding their focus on English as a 2nd language and how kids in that school are falling far behind grade level by the time they take 3rd grade standardized tests, she put the onus back on us - if the school fails to teach your child, then you need to be involved: come to the school, volunteer there, improve the school with your own energies! Which...huh. Sure.
In that paradigm, what do we need the school for? We are involved parents...who work full time. Our expectation is that the school is supposed to provide enough challenges and varied, exciting curricula that our involvement can remain at the homework/discussion/extras-like-music-lessons/reading-at-bedtime level; that the school will still do their job well enough that our child is an enthusiastic learner each day in their classrooms using the materials and skills ~they~ bring to the table.
My son isn't a genius. He's average. He's MY average kid, with his own uniquely challenging and sweet personality.
I'm not talking about trying to meet a gifted or special needs child's educational requirements.
So, because we can - barely - afford the sacrifice, we chose to not put our kid in our local elementary school. Which makes me feel like an elitist, but also like a very fortunate parent who can choose whether my kid goes to a failing school or learns how to genuflect while he attends a generally more successful school. For money.
Also, I'm pissed. And even though I believe the sacrifice is totally worth it - given our choices - I'm PISSED that I have to make it at all. Mainly for all the people who can't afford anything LIKE Catholic school. Because what does a failing system mean for them? That they work just as hard as they can and KNOW that their kid will still have to be exceptionally motivated to excel in a poor system?
It's broken.
I could go on all crazily even further when it comes to the focus/charter program. And the wealthy neighborhood schools vs everybody else's opportunities. And the $18,000 private secular schools. (Seriously? $18,000 for KINDERGARTEN? Previous rant aside, is there ANYTHING worth that much that a Kindergartner needs?) Sigh...
And in a couple of years, barring a miracle, I guess my daughter will go to Catholic School too. And the fact is, Catholic School would have been right up there with Druid School before our lives as parents intersected our lives as citizens in a pathetic school system.
I'm not an educator or a public administrator. I've got ONE kid in ONE school. So this rant is pretty personal and focuses on that ONE experience.
Nevertheless, there's a LOT I could rant about when it comes to WHY we chose Catholic School. Such as how, by the time we settled on parochial school for Milo, we'd already been completely flattened by a difficult year personally, and then again by our perceived failure of both the local public school and then of the public school lottery system, through which, theoretically, we could have sent Milo to one of the slightly better public focus or charter schools.
Anecdotally, I repeatedly hear my parent-friends and neighbors kvetch about how the Portland public school system thunderingly fails to provide their children a good, challenging space for that child to reach their education potential. That's a mouthful, isn't it? But it seems to be true: most schools here in Portland seem to feel they are successful if they've provided the mean basics to about half of their students.
Most schools have no art, music, PE, or any other instructors for subjects deemed "Extra". And the No Child Left Behind Act hasn't seemed to make any kind of impact toward "improvement" other than to make the schools dramatically reduce anything not accounted for by that program.
Our local school, which has always been ranked "Low" (on a scale of Unacceptable > In Need of Improvement > Low > Satisfactory > Strong > Exceptional > Outstanding), is still "Low". Their test scores are still some of the lowest in the city. Except now they also don't have any of the Arts or other extras to sweeten the day...
And when I spoke to our local school principal about my fears regarding their rankings and ratings, about the anecdotal negatives we'd heard from our neighbors regarding their focus on English as a 2nd language and how kids in that school are falling far behind grade level by the time they take 3rd grade standardized tests, she put the onus back on us - if the school fails to teach your child, then you need to be involved: come to the school, volunteer there, improve the school with your own energies! Which...huh. Sure.
In that paradigm, what do we need the school for? We are involved parents...who work full time. Our expectation is that the school is supposed to provide enough challenges and varied, exciting curricula that our involvement can remain at the homework/discussion/extras-like-music-lessons/reading-at-bedtime level; that the school will still do their job well enough that our child is an enthusiastic learner each day in their classrooms using the materials and skills ~they~ bring to the table.
My son isn't a genius. He's average. He's MY average kid, with his own uniquely challenging and sweet personality.
I'm not talking about trying to meet a gifted or special needs child's educational requirements.
- I'm talking about I am not sure he would be reading/writing/doing math/learning history and science at grade level in the Portland public school system.
- I'm talking about boredom, overcrowding, apathy, limited classroom options, and a system that is barely ~barely~ making it.
- I'm talking about a kid who, in that program, would grow up thinking "PE" and "Recess" are synonymous.
- Who would never hear a symphony with his classmates, or see an in-school play, make art with an instructor who really knows something about art, or even just go on a field trip.
So, because we can - barely - afford the sacrifice, we chose to not put our kid in our local elementary school. Which makes me feel like an elitist, but also like a very fortunate parent who can choose whether my kid goes to a failing school or learns how to genuflect while he attends a generally more successful school. For money.
Also, I'm pissed. And even though I believe the sacrifice is totally worth it - given our choices - I'm PISSED that I have to make it at all. Mainly for all the people who can't afford anything LIKE Catholic school. Because what does a failing system mean for them? That they work just as hard as they can and KNOW that their kid will still have to be exceptionally motivated to excel in a poor system?
It's broken.
I could go on all crazily even further when it comes to the focus/charter program. And the wealthy neighborhood schools vs everybody else's opportunities. And the $18,000 private secular schools. (Seriously? $18,000 for KINDERGARTEN? Previous rant aside, is there ANYTHING worth that much that a Kindergartner needs?) Sigh...
Monday, March 29, 2010
Love
Thursday it will be 1 year since Jamie's heart surgery. One, long, pretty rough year.
And also? A year with a major avalanche of love on all sides. And with every pain and every bump and scuffmark, we've also gotten a LOT of powerful and generous help and compassion from so many people.
My birthday was this month, and once again my friends proved what angels they are. I feel undeserving, but very full of warm lovey-love.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
February: Ann's Eulogy
Grief is such a trip.
It's this invisible cloud surrounding me and through which my entire life is filtered, but nobody else can see it. I really GET why people used to wear mourning or mourning symbols in previous - whether recent or ancient - cultures: it's because you can ADVERTISE your state of mind.
So I'm trying to do small things in my life which both speak to my feelings of grief and process them. Like deliberately bringing my sister into conversations (not mindlessly, but relating experiences with her more deliberately than I used to, just to be able to TALK about her). And taking time to do a lot of silent, mentally untaxing tasks, like sewing, leaving my mind free to focus on that process.
So THIS post is a copy of my notes from her eulogy.
Giving a eulogy at a Mormon funeral was full of unexpected pitfalls, which is a completely different post about how out of touch I am with my roots, so much so that I hadn't thought I'd feel like such an outsider in that world at my own sister's service, and maybe a bit about the collision of my disbelief in an afterlife with the grieving of people convinced they'd see my sister again. But that's not today.
Ann's funeral was attended by 350-400 people, and it was held at the same church I attended my entire childhood, at which my father served as a Mormon bishop. The meeting house was packed, so full that I gave an involuntary squeak when I stood up at the speaker's podium and realized that the room was full all the way through the chapel and attached gymnasium.
Ann Marie was really loved and really impacted many many people. I miss her terribly.
Ann Marie's Eulogy - 12/16/2009___________
Hello and welcome.
I don't know how many of you ever spent much time with my sister, Ann Marie, on the telephone.
Ann is not a chatter. I doubt in the past thirty-odd years we ever talked about the weather, current events, movies, or our hair.
Phone conversations with Ann, like everything else in her life, were held eclectically and passionately. No detail of anyone's life seemed uninteresting to her. With her amazing mind, she knew and catalogued information about the smallest details of everyone's life, and would always respond to any confidence with a lot of heartfelt advice.
I never spoke with her without taking away information about what I should eat, a book or article I should read, a lecture I should locate, or some other specific, personalized symbol of how much she was listening to me and caring about my well-being.
Right now I have saved on my cell phone the last voice mail I'll ever get from Ann Marie. It's nothing unique in the history of our relationship: in the course of 2 minutes, she gives me the name of a supplement she thinks I should be taking, the website where I can order the supplement, the name and telephone number of a doctor she looked up for me to see in Portland who would prescribe the supplement if I needed, the location of the article she first found mentioning this supplement, including publication, issue and page number and it's author. She left that message three weeks before she died, when surely every bit of her energy was precious.
I grew up in a family of bright, intense, highly spiritual people. And of all of us, I think it's safe to say that Ann amplified those gifts to megawatt brilliance. I doubt there is any facet of her life that she didn't approach with a deliberate, scholarly thoroughness, whether it was child-rearing, home decorating, cooking, gardening, and, of course, reading.
Her passion was health, particularly nutrition, but no subject seemed unworthy of her intense scrutiny.
Ann had a wonderful sense of the ridiculous. Her eyes were always full of sparkle, and I can't think of her without picturing her gesticulating and rolling her eyes at something that made her laugh, whether from pleasure or disdain.
Some of you may know that Ann studied and could read in multiple languages, mostly to support her private scholarly pursuits and read historical and biblical texts in their original form. The few I remember are Ancient Greek, Ancient Hebrew, Mandarin Chinese, and I think Korean, as her husband Marshall spoke that language.
In Marshall, Ann was so lucky to find a partner who could match her brilliance and intensity. The two of them have always seemed so in love, and I have many early memories of observing their courtship and thinking how well suited they are.
I've always loved Marshall, but I have to tell you that these past few months seeing and hearing about his work to help Ann fight this, the worst battle, Marshall has been not just her partner, but Ann Marie's hero. During several conversations this summer and autumn, Ann repeatedly said that Marshall made her feel like a princess in a story.
I said that we never talked about movies, but many times she noted that she felt like Princess Buttercup from the movie The Princess Bride, with her Wesley telling her he would always come for her.
Marshall, Ann loved you so deeply and she knew how loved and cherished she was as your wife.
I've probably exceeded my allotted time. And in some ways, I don't think I will ever be able to stop eulogizing my sister. But I did want to tell her children - my wonderful nieces and nephews, who so obviously reflect their parents gifts - how loved they were and are. You don't have the smallest toenail that Ann wasn't interested in and devoted to, and I am proud and so happy that, while I will always miss her, that I will also always see her shadows and reflections in each of you.
It's this invisible cloud surrounding me and through which my entire life is filtered, but nobody else can see it. I really GET why people used to wear mourning or mourning symbols in previous - whether recent or ancient - cultures: it's because you can ADVERTISE your state of mind.
So I'm trying to do small things in my life which both speak to my feelings of grief and process them. Like deliberately bringing my sister into conversations (not mindlessly, but relating experiences with her more deliberately than I used to, just to be able to TALK about her). And taking time to do a lot of silent, mentally untaxing tasks, like sewing, leaving my mind free to focus on that process.
So THIS post is a copy of my notes from her eulogy.
Giving a eulogy at a Mormon funeral was full of unexpected pitfalls, which is a completely different post about how out of touch I am with my roots, so much so that I hadn't thought I'd feel like such an outsider in that world at my own sister's service, and maybe a bit about the collision of my disbelief in an afterlife with the grieving of people convinced they'd see my sister again. But that's not today.
Ann's funeral was attended by 350-400 people, and it was held at the same church I attended my entire childhood, at which my father served as a Mormon bishop. The meeting house was packed, so full that I gave an involuntary squeak when I stood up at the speaker's podium and realized that the room was full all the way through the chapel and attached gymnasium.
Ann Marie was really loved and really impacted many many people. I miss her terribly.
Ann Marie's Eulogy - 12/16/2009___________
Hello and welcome.
I don't know how many of you ever spent much time with my sister, Ann Marie, on the telephone.
Ann is not a chatter. I doubt in the past thirty-odd years we ever talked about the weather, current events, movies, or our hair.
Phone conversations with Ann, like everything else in her life, were held eclectically and passionately. No detail of anyone's life seemed uninteresting to her. With her amazing mind, she knew and catalogued information about the smallest details of everyone's life, and would always respond to any confidence with a lot of heartfelt advice.
I never spoke with her without taking away information about what I should eat, a book or article I should read, a lecture I should locate, or some other specific, personalized symbol of how much she was listening to me and caring about my well-being.
Right now I have saved on my cell phone the last voice mail I'll ever get from Ann Marie. It's nothing unique in the history of our relationship: in the course of 2 minutes, she gives me the name of a supplement she thinks I should be taking, the website where I can order the supplement, the name and telephone number of a doctor she looked up for me to see in Portland who would prescribe the supplement if I needed, the location of the article she first found mentioning this supplement, including publication, issue and page number and it's author. She left that message three weeks before she died, when surely every bit of her energy was precious.
I grew up in a family of bright, intense, highly spiritual people. And of all of us, I think it's safe to say that Ann amplified those gifts to megawatt brilliance. I doubt there is any facet of her life that she didn't approach with a deliberate, scholarly thoroughness, whether it was child-rearing, home decorating, cooking, gardening, and, of course, reading.
Her passion was health, particularly nutrition, but no subject seemed unworthy of her intense scrutiny.
Ann had a wonderful sense of the ridiculous. Her eyes were always full of sparkle, and I can't think of her without picturing her gesticulating and rolling her eyes at something that made her laugh, whether from pleasure or disdain.
Some of you may know that Ann studied and could read in multiple languages, mostly to support her private scholarly pursuits and read historical and biblical texts in their original form. The few I remember are Ancient Greek, Ancient Hebrew, Mandarin Chinese, and I think Korean, as her husband Marshall spoke that language.
In Marshall, Ann was so lucky to find a partner who could match her brilliance and intensity. The two of them have always seemed so in love, and I have many early memories of observing their courtship and thinking how well suited they are.
I've always loved Marshall, but I have to tell you that these past few months seeing and hearing about his work to help Ann fight this, the worst battle, Marshall has been not just her partner, but Ann Marie's hero. During several conversations this summer and autumn, Ann repeatedly said that Marshall made her feel like a princess in a story.
I said that we never talked about movies, but many times she noted that she felt like Princess Buttercup from the movie The Princess Bride, with her Wesley telling her he would always come for her.
Marshall, Ann loved you so deeply and she knew how loved and cherished she was as your wife.
I've probably exceeded my allotted time. And in some ways, I don't think I will ever be able to stop eulogizing my sister. But I did want to tell her children - my wonderful nieces and nephews, who so obviously reflect their parents gifts - how loved they were and are. You don't have the smallest toenail that Ann wasn't interested in and devoted to, and I am proud and so happy that, while I will always miss her, that I will also always see her shadows and reflections in each of you.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
The knight and the beast
My sister, A, is in Germany this week pursuing an experimental treatment to stop her cancer from spreading. It's, oh, geez...I'm very happy that there IS an experimental anything to interrupt cancer's rampage. And this experience is such a perpetually delicate, painful thing. I'm not sure I can really write about how afraid and wistfully hopeful I am.
We had this great talk, she & I, about her husband and his efforts to find the right treatment for her. She compared him to Wesley in The Princess Bride, doing anything to keep his love safe, and I know he'd come back from the mostly dead to save her if he could.
My brother-in-law is just blowing my mind with his desperation and determination to help my sister get the treatment they believe may stop the attack of new tumors.
As a physician, my sister's husband has access to a number of resources (hospitals, doctors, cancer research institutes, medical investors and entrepreneurs), and the industry clout which gives him credibility when he assaults those resources with his agenda.
He has stayed awake nights compiling reports and packets and amassing and clarifying data on this experimental treatment, which he has then packaged professionally and sent to any credible institution or research facility that might put this treatment into place soon enough to help A.
I'm amazed, and very very moved, by his fierceness, and am clinging tightly to my hope that his tenacity, this German doctor who just gave A the treatment yesterday, and just the power of chance, medicine, and determination, will put cancer - that bitch - on the run.
Friday, September 25, 2009
New Addition Announcement!
Evil.
Not one of these:
One of THESE:
One of THESE:
WordNerdBird. My (technical) writer's musings and queries of the darkest, vaguest, stumbliest kind.
Monday, September 21, 2009
A big tornado of awesome
I have some lovely, exceptional friends.
For various reasons, this blog is not where I typically honor - or even mention - my friends except possibly anecdotally and briefly. But I really am perpetually amazed by the sustaining and enduring friendships I've been able to make in this incarnation of my life, post-college, post-bad-marriage(s), post-Utah.
And this is as good a place as any to note something a bit convoluted: My friends have - most likely unbeknownst to them - helped me process my ability to be a friend, and helped heal my perspective on past experiences. There is absolutely a time - more recent than I wish - when I would never have been able to, without judgment, speculation or fear, embrace forgiving, loving relationships with past friends, if I didn't have current friends who feed my sense of self-worth.
I'm not even sure that makes sense to anybody but me.
I guess my point is: I have a loving community around me full of women who have REALLY showered me with not just kindness and acceptance, but praise, sustenance, love and genuine affection. And the insecure or wounded parts of me which didn't think I deserved any of those gifts have finally, I think, been mollified into quiescence.
Last night, in a WHOLLY unexpected move, several of my friends (and with Jamie's help and blessing) surprised me with a half-birthday-and-congratulations-for-surviving-3/4-of-the-suckiest-year-ever party!
I can't even express how amazed and moved I was. Am.
So thank you, Angie, Jen, Joi, Karen, Ruth and Sarah. And Jamie. And the many other friends and family - online, long-distance, or otherwise - who have been supportive, kind, and just generally THERE recently.
Because you have really made me happy.
And loving.
(And even a bit tearful.)
From a very grateful place today,
-R Waffle
For various reasons, this blog is not where I typically honor - or even mention - my friends except possibly anecdotally and briefly. But I really am perpetually amazed by the sustaining and enduring friendships I've been able to make in this incarnation of my life, post-college, post-bad-marriage(s), post-Utah.
And this is as good a place as any to note something a bit convoluted: My friends have - most likely unbeknownst to them - helped me process my ability to be a friend, and helped heal my perspective on past experiences. There is absolutely a time - more recent than I wish - when I would never have been able to, without judgment, speculation or fear, embrace forgiving, loving relationships with past friends, if I didn't have current friends who feed my sense of self-worth.
I'm not even sure that makes sense to anybody but me.
I guess my point is: I have a loving community around me full of women who have REALLY showered me with not just kindness and acceptance, but praise, sustenance, love and genuine affection. And the insecure or wounded parts of me which didn't think I deserved any of those gifts have finally, I think, been mollified into quiescence.
Last night, in a WHOLLY unexpected move, several of my friends (and with Jamie's help and blessing) surprised me with a half-birthday-and-congratulations-for-surviving-3/4-of-the-suckiest-year-ever party!
I can't even express how amazed and moved I was. Am.
So thank you, Angie, Jen, Joi, Karen, Ruth and Sarah. And Jamie. And the many other friends and family - online, long-distance, or otherwise - who have been supportive, kind, and just generally THERE recently.
Because you have really made me happy.
And loving.
(And even a bit tearful.)
From a very grateful place today,
-R Waffle
Monday, September 14, 2009
Unbelievably...
Even though today is close to my six year anniversary of being a parent, it's my first day as the parent of a kindergartener.
And since I have about 8 snippets of memories preceding my own life prior to Kindergarten, I can assume that at most, the past 6 years will be encapsulated into 4 minutes of memories for Milo, 34 years hence.
Good to know my time has been well spent.
(and hold me - because today is just a big, jaw-dropping day of GAH! Kindergarten!)
Monday, May 25, 2009
Gadget Man Defies Gravity!
Jamie's not-so-secrety spy name is Gadget Man. And I'm going to leave it at that, letting you imagine the discourses endured enjoyed discussing shutter aparature, gigabyte capacity, widget blah blah.
Ultimately, if he's happy, I'm happy.
And, sure, sometimes I learn more about something I will never actually use (cough cough video camera) than I mightever in a zillion years want to ever ever hear about need, but that's just fine. Really.
However. However, there's one thing I think is worth talking about: gadgets require care. If you take it somewhere, you need to bring it home.
For example: a couple of years ago, I pulled into my parking space at work (a 17 mile drive), when something loud clunked down the windshield. That something turned out to be Jamie's super special hand-held GPS navigation system. Which had apparently been capable of clinging to the top of the car for at least that drive.
And then there's yesterday. Burned forever in my mind as The Great iPod Hunt 2009. Yesterday, the Waffles went to:
Ultimately, if he's happy, I'm happy.
And, sure, sometimes I learn more about something I will never actually use (cough cough video camera) than I might
However. However, there's one thing I think is worth talking about: gadgets require care. If you take it somewhere, you need to bring it home.
For example: a couple of years ago, I pulled into my parking space at work (a 17 mile drive), when something loud clunked down the windshield. That something turned out to be Jamie's super special hand-held GPS navigation system. Which had apparently been capable of clinging to the top of the car for at least that drive.
And then there's yesterday. Burned forever in my mind as The Great iPod Hunt 2009. Yesterday, the Waffles went to:
- The pool
- The bank
- The toystore
- The bike store
- The grocery store
- The river for a picnic
Friday, May 15, 2009
Mother's Day...Late and later...
It's been sixteen years since I first (as an adult) met my birth mother, J****.
I can't imagine what she went through as a pregnant fourteen year old, and then as that girl, the one who had a baby, when she went back to High School and then on through the rest of her own young life.
I may not have mentioned this about her before, but she's really amazingly smart. She got a Ph.D. from a really REALLY prestigious university AND received a really prestigious fellowship.
She took her life story and turned it into one of strength and hope and positivity. When I met her, I was amazed at what a warm, bright, happy person she was.
Sixteen years ago, I was...oh, not all that awesome in many ways. I was in a series of muddles: married to my 1st husband, having lots of problems with my adopted family, dropping in and out of college as I could or could not pay for each semester.
I was articulate, which sometimes made me seem bright and driven and determined, but I wasn't really, just smashing my way through a messy young adulthood. I screwed up a lot.
J**** is someone with whom I desperately want to have a relationship - for many reasons. Some of which I acknowledge are healthy and some not, in that they are snarled up in my own self-discovery rather than in focusing outward on that relationship. At first, I'd communicate with J**** every few weeks, though all the chaos that was my life in my twenties. That time period stretched until it was just at holidays - and when we did talk, things were a more and more awkward.
Things in her life also got more complicated, and a number of good things, but also a number of sad things, happened to her, which seemed to make the distance between us broader.
A friend gave me advice to remember that J**** had a baby as a child herself. She went through HUGE difficulties to become the woman she is. Whatever painful stories she has been through, those, along with guilt and anxiety, surface for her every time we communicate. And each time might be as painful as the first time we met.
I've really tried to take that to heart.
So lately (as in, the past 4-5 years), I've been sending her little e-mail notes 2-3 times a year, with pictures of us and a little summary of where we are and what we're doing.
Usually there is no response, but occasionally I'll get an e-mail and photos back. And even though each time she doesn't respond is privately wrenching, I just keep trying.
This year, my most recent e-mail, with an update about Jamie's surgery and Mother's Day greetings, bounced.
That was my last point of contact with her, and I have been finding this devestating. She's not dead, but she's removed the one way I had to reach out to her.
That's all.
I had written a longer, more self-absorbed post about all the screw-ups I've made which may have brought her to decide, despite my lack of recent crazy, not to know me, but ultimately, ULTIMATELY, I can only say that I've made mistakes but so does everybody. The mistake I want to NOT make, however, is that of giving up hope completely.
So, in hope, and with the only method left to me at all, Happy Mother's Day, Janet.
I love you.
And thank you always,
-Rebekah
I can't imagine what she went through as a pregnant fourteen year old, and then as that girl, the one who had a baby, when she went back to High School and then on through the rest of her own young life.
I may not have mentioned this about her before, but she's really amazingly smart. She got a Ph.D. from a really REALLY prestigious university AND received a really prestigious fellowship.
She took her life story and turned it into one of strength and hope and positivity. When I met her, I was amazed at what a warm, bright, happy person she was.
Sixteen years ago, I was...oh, not all that awesome in many ways. I was in a series of muddles: married to my 1st husband, having lots of problems with my adopted family, dropping in and out of college as I could or could not pay for each semester.
I was articulate, which sometimes made me seem bright and driven and determined, but I wasn't really, just smashing my way through a messy young adulthood. I screwed up a lot.
J**** is someone with whom I desperately want to have a relationship - for many reasons. Some of which I acknowledge are healthy and some not, in that they are snarled up in my own self-discovery rather than in focusing outward on that relationship. At first, I'd communicate with J**** every few weeks, though all the chaos that was my life in my twenties. That time period stretched until it was just at holidays - and when we did talk, things were a more and more awkward.
Things in her life also got more complicated, and a number of good things, but also a number of sad things, happened to her, which seemed to make the distance between us broader.
A friend gave me advice to remember that J**** had a baby as a child herself. She went through HUGE difficulties to become the woman she is. Whatever painful stories she has been through, those, along with guilt and anxiety, surface for her every time we communicate. And each time might be as painful as the first time we met.
I've really tried to take that to heart.
So lately (as in, the past 4-5 years), I've been sending her little e-mail notes 2-3 times a year, with pictures of us and a little summary of where we are and what we're doing.
Usually there is no response, but occasionally I'll get an e-mail and photos back. And even though each time she doesn't respond is privately wrenching, I just keep trying.
This year, my most recent e-mail, with an update about Jamie's surgery and Mother's Day greetings, bounced.
That was my last point of contact with her, and I have been finding this devestating. She's not dead, but she's removed the one way I had to reach out to her.
That's all.
I had written a longer, more self-absorbed post about all the screw-ups I've made which may have brought her to decide, despite my lack of recent crazy, not to know me, but ultimately, ULTIMATELY, I can only say that I've made mistakes but so does everybody. The mistake I want to NOT make, however, is that of giving up hope completely.
So, in hope, and with the only method left to me at all, Happy Mother's Day, Janet.
I love you.
And thank you always,
-Rebekah
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
