Opinions

It's always funny to notice the conflicting attitudes people can hold within themselves.

In the midst of DH and I bantering back and forth with each other at his parents' house, I had a head-scratching moment. DH was teasing me while getting drinks for everyone for dinner. I told him, before he had actually asked me, that I thought I would like a Coke with my meal. Pretending to be put upon by my anticipatory answer, he declared that he wouldn't want to get it for me and risk offending my feminist ideals by implying that I needed a man to get my drink for me.

I laughed and sarcastically thanked him for being so thoughtful and respectful of my intrinsic equality with men.

His mother asked querulously,"Oh...are you a women's libber?", with an obvious tone of disapproval.

Stifling a giggle at the archaic term, I asked, "Why do you ask?"

DH strode the fence and jumped in, "I doubt she would fit into a specific box, or label."

Trying to answer my mother-in-law, I declared,"I would probably call myself a mild feminist. I don't know if I would fall in line with everything that stereotypical feminists promote, but I believe in the absolute equality of women with men and don't think there should be any barriers preventing women from participating in any realm of our society."

"Oh, I don't think so either," said my mother-in-law quickly, seemingly worried that she might have offended me. She talked for a few minutes about a friend and her daughter's radical feminism with a knowing smile meant to acknowledge how ridiculous the daughter was being. Then, after communicating the subtle dislike of feminism, she shocked me by saying:

"Actually, I think women are stronger than men anyway. Things that would crush a man are handled all the time by women."

I let out a snort of laughter and teased her. "So what you're saying is that women are not equal to men...they are superior! We shouldn't be fighting for equality, but instead should be focusing on domination of the world by the properly superior sex!"

We all laughed together.

People are funny.

I've had a chance to catch my breath and come to terms with the whole house situation...yet again.

The remaining termite damage is small compared to what we repaired over the last year; the short end of the garage and maybe some involvement near the kitchen wall that connects to the garage. I know that things are structurally sound because we made major structural repairs to every other wall in the house, and I know what's on the inside of those walls.

So....I've taken a breath and decided to move forward with renting the house out and buying my brother out of his portion of it.

Yep....I'll be rivaling Donald Trump in no time flat....investor and landlord will be added to my current jack-of-all-trades tool belt.

After catching my breath, I went in search of the deed to the house. It was paid off years ago, and I hadn't looked for it because it was low on the list of priorities in managing the estate. While going through the relevant stack of house-related papers, I found my father's original settlement papers from when he bought the house.

Much to my frustration, I also chanced across an envelope dated one month before his closing date. It was a termite inspection report. It noted termite infestation in several areas of the house.A shock passed through me as I realized that my father knew the whole time that his house had been infested and damaged.

There had been some speculation on my part about how much and when my father knew about this disaster. He had mentioned to me once many years before that he thought he might have termites. This conversation took place in the context of him eventually selling his home.

Now, I realize that it was a lie/half-truth. He didn't suspect....he knew. He knew it before he ever bought the house. He knew it the whole time he was living there. He knew it as he made plans to retire, sell the house, and move to Alabama.

He knew the whole time and he was going to pass it off onto someone else if he could get away with it.

Suddenly this problem wasn't a result of his procrastination, or denial of what was happening...it was the result of his outright attempt to buy a house on the cheap and unload it on someone else, later.

What a family pedigree I have!

Alas, I can't say that the image of my father is tainted by all this. I knew that he wasn't exactly the most integrity-driven person in the world.

As I discussed in my other post about forgiveness, the world can't survive without redeemers.

In small and large ways the Christian life is one of taking the crap and refuse that the world, and other people, spew out and repairing, restoring, and renewing it.

My dad left us a rotting pile of a house and we have turned it into a solid, new, improved home.

He planned to pass a problem onto someone else; we planned to prevent someone else from having the problem.

Lately I don't sermonize much, or have any great illusions about my ability to communicate with God, or for God, but trying to see the situation through these themes is the only thing keeping me going right now.

My grandmother seems to swing wildly between seeming as if she's on death's door and seeming as if she's just fine. I never know what I'm going to find when I visit her.

Today, while we were waiting for her lunch to show up so that I could help her eat, I asked her if she wanted me to read her paperback out loud to her.

She thought that would be a great idea.

Poor Grandma.

She missed all the sex scenes in her Trashy Supernatural Romance Novel.

I can't read the phrases "growing manhood", "scent of their lovemaking", and "burning lips" in front of my 86 year old grandmother....at least not without laughing hysterically.

Who'd have thought that I would have to censor my elder's reading material?

My grandmother has been in the hospital for over a week, now.

She went in to have her gall bladder removed and things spiraled out of control, as they tend to do with elderly patients; a serious kidney infection, blood clots in her lungs, a heart attack that went undetected in the hospital until her enzymes showed evidence of it, and now kidneys that have stopped functioning....though they show signs of possibly recovering.

The first time I visited her in the ICU, she was completely wiped out. She didn't realize that I was there. Helpless to do much, other than ask the nurses to bring her an extra blanket when she complained of being cold, I sat and watched her in the dim light filtering out of the fluorescent bulb overhead.

I listened as she struggled to breathe, worried about her high respiration count, and worried that she might stop breathing. She has a DNR order, meaning that if she were to suddenly stop breathing, that would be the end for her.

I thought of the all the dinners I had eaten with her during my father's visitation weekends when I was a child. She taught me to love butter...the real thing. My mother's house only ever had margarine, or the yellow oily spread plopped into plastic tubs by industrial machinery. Dinner would always be big and wonderful and generously flavored with butter, only to be followed by a swirled, marble cake served with hot tea poured out of a tall, white, china teapot.

When my brother and I would visit my grandparents, my grandmother would set an enormous pile of Sunday comics that she had saved especially for me to read. I would sit and pore through each paper while she made dinner and my grandfather watched the Cubs lose, yet again.

For the last two days I have spoon-fed my grandmother jell-o and pudding and small puddles of hot tea. I've been happy to do it, because there is nothing else that I can do. I think about my father, her son, who isn't here to help his mother...and I know that I am there, not only for myself, but as a stand-in for the son who isn't here any more.

I feel the weight of that representation to her and my father's siblings. I am him...by proxy.

Familial duty. It isn't a burdensome weight, but it does feel a little strange to carry it, knowing that this crisis, and my father's absence in the circle around my grandmother's bed, is an unspoken sentence hanging in the air.

Right now, the doctors think her kidneys may be on the verge of recovering, though only time will tell. It's been the only hopeful news of the past week.

Still, after I fed her tonight, she drifted off to sleep and I sat like a watch-dog ready to pounce as I watched her heart rate linger in the 120's and occasionally spike up to 150.

Uncertainty lingers.

Monster Mash

From my mother-in-law, the werewolf:

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You never know who will take your photos and do something nefarious and funny with them.

And yes...that's my real hair.

Happy Mother's Day to You, Too!

There are times when life is too ironic for me to handle. 

Take today, for instance. Being a good, dutiful daughter, I called my mom to wish her a Happy Mother's Day. After a few minutes and some questions about her health, we proceeded to have an argument, wherein she said that she would never be able to live with us.

Somehow the fabric of space/time had warped and we had jumped from, 

"Hi. How are you doing?" 

to

"I never feel welcome in your home."

all in the span of three minutes.

Yeah...well...Happy Mother's Day to you, too!

Don't feel too sorry for me.  I'm used to this kind of emotional irrationality when it comes to navigating the relationship with my mother.  It's highly frustrating.  It's annoying.  It can come from left field......but it's not personal.

She does it to everyone.

An overdeveloped sense of victimization and easily hurt feelings combines with a passive aggressive tendency to not let people know how deeply she's offended, while simultaneously holding on to petty grudges with no basis in reality.

It's a perfect storm of  you-just-can't-win.

It turns out that she was upset about something my husband said 9 years ago.  NINE....YEARS!

What was the awful, horrible thing he did?

Well, after I passed out in an emergency room, having a seizure in my 7th month of pregnancy leading to an emergency c-section and The Rationalist being in the NICU for three weeks after being born at the low weight of 3.5 pounds...my husband suggested that she not go up to say good night to me that first night because I needed my rest.

Horror of horrors! What an unfeeling brute!

Never mind the fact that I was completely unconscious for the first day and half after that experience and have absolutely no memory of those first couple of days.  Never mind the fact that my husband just watched his wife go through a life-threatening episode and had seen his son shipped off to a hospital thirty miles away after being born 7 weeks premature.  Never mind that it was a life or death situation.

No. The most important thing my husband was supposed to do was to worry about my mother's feelings and whether or not she had taken something he had said as a slight. Right?!

From my mother's perspective, DH should have known how it would make her feel.. He should have stopped to think about what she(!?) was going through. 

Me: "So did you talk to DH about why you wanted to say good-bye?  That you were worried about me?"

Mom: "No. He told me to go."

Me:"Whoa...before you said that he told you it might not be a good idea because I needed to rest."

Mom: "Well..I knew what he meant."

Me: "Did it ever occur to you that this was a crisis situation? Did it ever occur to you that maybe if you had taken a moment to explain that you were worried I wouldn't make it and wanted to be sure to see me..that he would have re-considered his suggestion that you wait until the next day to see me?"

Mom: "NO.  He should have known."

This is the point where my head explodes into a million pieces.

What makes all of this even more exasperating is the fact that my mother's health is declining. I have had a very bad feeling the last few months when I have spoken to her. My intuition is telling me that something is very wrong with her and she is in complete denial.  Having lost her insurance about 6 months ago, she won't go to get an ultrasound she needs because she can't afford it.

I know that there are probably ways to get the care she needs at a discounted cost, or maybe even free considering her financial situation, but I am 1,000 miles away.  She needs someone to go with her and be an advocate for her.  

My brothers, while not uncaring, aren't understanding the full scope of the situation she's in. I'm not sure if she is sharing everything with them, or when she does, if they are putting 2 and 2 together.

I'm in the position of being the one who knows my mother best, and seeing through all her charades, and yet being unable to help her because of distance...and now apparently because of some twisted up reaction that she's held onto for a long time.

In the same conversation she goes on about how she couldn't live with one of my brothers because of reason X, and she couldn't live with one of my other brothers for reason Y.  She is building a wall around herself and setting her feet on a path of self-destruction...all based on feelings which are disproportionate to reality.  Situations call for a reaction level of 3 and she responds with a 9.

After an hour of me trying to get her to be reasonable and give people the benefit of the doubt, after a marathon of reassurances that we love her and want to help her, and after a reminder of how many times she has offended people and been granted forgiveness and understanding(many, many times)...we left the conversation on good terms.

I told her I loved her and that we are here to help, when and if she needs it.

Why do things have to be so complicated?

It would have been so nice to call and have a happy chat and some good wishes.

sigh.

I really wasn't planning on testing the limits of my unconditional, Christian love today.

God must think I need to work on it.

Blast from the Past

In an attempt to eradicate a pile of boxes that has been sitting in the middle of our bedroom floor, some of which have been there for at least 5 months, I plunged into sorting things out. One of the boxes was from my dad's house and contained old photos and mementos.  I had glanced through them initially after bringing them dome, but hadn't gone through them in detail. While doing so, I came across a great treasure; a letter from our sainted Uncle Leo, relating some of the family history. 

My maiden name is a very Irish name.  My great, great grandparents  both emigrated to the US at about the same time, around 1881-1882. My great, great grandfather came from Ireland, while my great, great grandmother and her family came from England.  

My grandfather, John S. McC-- had bright red hair and icy blue eyes, the stereotypical Irishmen, with a fiery temper to boot. He was a tragic figure.  His mother had died within a month of his birth during the Influenza Epidemic of 1918.  His father remarried shortly after her death.  Thus begins the story of the abusive stepmother and never-ending tragedy that shaped my grandfather's life. Many of the twists and turns his path took would make for an interesting novel, or sweeping movie, but that's for another time.

In the midst of my grandfather's story, and consequently my father's story, was the figure of the almost mythical Uncle Leo. Uncle Leo was the savior of my grandfather and his family on multiple occasions. Uncle Leo took my grandfather in when his own parents were ready to ship him off to a home for boys. Uncle Leo provided a place to live each time one of my grandfather's schemes fell through.  Uncle Leo was a place of refuge when my father decided to leave California--the most recent place my grandfather had dragged his family--hop on a bus, and head back to the Midwest, leaving behind nothing but a note, amounting to "see you later", for my grandparents. Uncle Leo helped out my mother when my parents divorced. Uncle Leo was a devout Catholic. Uncle Leo took care of his mother, the matriarch of the family, until she passed away at 95.  

The stories go on and on. 

I had an image in my mind of a long-suffering, mama's boy (meant in the best possible way) who was more saint than human, possibly quite virtuous but also boring. Not having any memory of him, because I was so young at the time, I had only stories by which to know him.

Reading his letter to some distant cousin of mine researching the family tree was a revelation. Uncle Leo was funny and colorful.  While recounting the family history, he would add little asides, or comments about the supposed truthfulness of the stories or his interpretation of the meaning of the family legacy.

On the superiority of the Hall-McC-- genes and the impending downfall of western civilization  at the hands of hippies and those without short haircuts:

Because of his efficiency and the industry with which he pursued his trade, he worked a long life(retired at 70) and provided a fairly large family with a good home, good living conditions, and good education, which it is doubtful he could have equaled in any other country.  If you want to verify that, take along look at his progeny. All the way through you will not find one hare-brained, long-haired hippie. [in reference to the Hall line]

Any 16 year old boy who left Ireland due to oppression(religious) and came to "free" America where in the short span of 20 years(1882-1902) did all of the above sure as hell must have been "efficient" and "industrious" while keeping his hair cut short. [in reference to the McC-- line]

On the "weird ideas" of having relatives, presumably male, attend the birth of a baby.

If your educated prof. thinks his or any other relatives presence in the delivery room, through the aura of love they might project from their nervous, fidgeting bodies would enhance the chances of survival for the infant being delivered, he is less than a half-wit.

On the truthfulness of my great, great, great grandmother McC--'s claim to be a daughter of the Colman mustard family in England, with a knighted father no less.

(This I heard but found a little hard to swallow. Who knows?)

He describes why a little later on.

By the way on the back of the lot where Tommie has his shop, Great Grandmother McC-- had a chicken coop.  One Sunday morning when I was three years old I went down to see her and she went out to the chicken coop with a grrrrrreeeaaatt biiiiggg butcher knife--chased the hens around until she caught one, brought it up to the back door and gripping its body between her knees, proceeded to saw off its head and dropped the squirming bloody necked body in a bucket to kick out its last moments. She had it for Sunday dinner. Hot diggity; what a gal!

You know, it just might be that that is the reason that I never could quite swallow that story about her being a well-bred gentlewoman--daughter of old Knight of the Garter--Colman.

On the family line and his place in it.

In 1895, May 13 they had their 1st son--John

---1897, June 13  -----------------2nd --Frances

---1899, Mar. 18------------------3rd--Stupid [Leo labeling himself...not sure why]

---1900, Oct. 20------------------4th--Thomas

This must be getting monotonous.  No daughters????

On his apparent inability to keep a job.

From 1916 to 1929, [he would have been 17-30 years old] when I left McKeesport, all through the roaring twenties I changed jobs so many times that it is hard to keep things in perspective.  Your dad can probably tell you more lucidly about those years than I.

My image of the man has changed quite a bit.  

Instead of wondering when this "pious" man was going to officially be beatified, I wonder what exactly he was doing in the roaring twenties during his prime. 

I wish I had more documents like this revealing the personalities in my family tree, rather than just letting me know someone's birth and death dates.

Fascinating stuff.

Dad, Part 2

I spent this past weekend going through my dad's house.  Because of the way things unfolded with his death, dealing with his house has become a major issue, requiring special cleaners and the need to get rid of most of his furnishings. By the end of the day movers had removed 90% of his furniture, and the house was practically empty.

Except for the garage.

The garage is full of tools, cables, air compressors, vehicle lifts, a mostly-finished rebuilt motorcycle, and more chemicals  than China could hold--spray paint, paint thinners, oil, transmission fluid, gas, anti-freeze and many more that I have no idea what they're for. Something auto-related, I am sure.

The garage, because it is sealed off from the house, has no odor that needs to be dealt with. Instead, I walk into it and I smell my dad as I remember him.  The combined perfume of all those chemicals, a metallic tinge and the scent of rubber hoses and tires.  It's not a bad smell, but the unmistakable perfume of a mechanic's habitat. 

I've smelled that scent since I was a little girl--usually when my dad had us for his visitation and he would take us by where he worked.  My brother and I would put our hands in the vise he used and twist it until we couldn't stand it anymore. We would bring magnets and play with the fine, metal shavings left over from rebuilding engine parts.  We would lay on the flat scooter thingy(the name escapes me), that mechanics use to get under cars, and push off across the garage floor.  It was probably dangerous for us to be there, but we had fun.

All the while my dad would be under the hood of a car, peeking his head up now and again to talk to us.  He would usually have to shout over the loud tape player which seemed to only accept tapes from The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Meatloaf, or....get ready for this one....Conway Twitty.  CONWAY TWITTY. Most of you probably have no idea who he was. A very corny country singer whose songs are all of the "loving and losing" genre.

Going through my dad's things has led to some surprises, and some laughs. When we went to his workplace to go through his toolboxes there, we came across three bags of silverware---real, silver-plated, old, silverware.  They were mixed in with wrenches and sockets. No rhyme or reason to it.  I asked my grandmother if she'd given him any family silverware. Nope.  So why was it there?  Where did it come from? Why did Dad have it in his work toolbox? 

It will remain a mystery.

As I went through his dressers, I would come across those cheap eyeglasses they have at the drugstore.  There must have been at least 10 pairs of them. I think he would buy some, they would get misplaced or covered up by the messiness of his room, so instead of looking for them, he'd just buy another pair.

I found multiples of things like that consistently. Flashlights.  Scissors.  Remote Controls. 1,000 pens.  Unused notebooks. I think his absent-mindedness about where he put things must have been the source of the repetitiveness of these items showing up in every corner of the house.

Going through his things hasn't been traumatic in any way.  

I've saved things that were signature "Dad"--like the two Indian-ish throws he used on his sofa, so he wouldn't get grease all over the couches.  I washed those and will be sending one to my brother.  

I saved two small ziploc bags of "gems"/shiny rocks that he dug out of the earth with my brother's family, this past summer, during one of his vacation weeks.  I have all of the pictures from his childhood, and the ones he had from our childhood. I have his baptism certificate from a Catholic church in Pennsylvania--another mystery considering my grandparents were most definitely non-believers in every way. Perhaps the Irish-Catholic, extended family exerted some influence there.

I'm doing OK with things most of the time. The first week after his death was so busy dealing with the memorial service, cremation, and making arrangements to deal with his house, that I would/could only mourn in brief moments when my mind wasn't occupied.  The day after his service, when the craziness had subsided, was the hardest.  I had nothing to distract myself from his passing, and finally was able to simply miss him.

Now, moments come and go of sadness.  Usually, the sadness comes not mainly from his passing, though I wished it hadn't happened, but from the knowledge that he had died alone and not been found right away.  It's nobody's fault, just a culmination of bad timing.  Still, I wish he had been at work, or out somewhere, so that someone could have attempted to help him, or at the very least saved him from the indignity of being left alone after he passed.

The sadness also comes in wishing I had said more to him over the years.  I don't have any major regrets, I just wished I had praised him more for the good qualities he had while he was here.

Maybe that's the take-home lesson.  Compliment people while they are still here, instead of saving it all up for their memorial.  Let them know what you have learned from them, while they can be encouraged by your words, instead of only wishing you had said it.

I'm going to work on that.

Dad

On October 1st I received a call that no one ever wants to receive.  It was the police department from my father's town. He had passed away in his home. 

I had called him twice that week and he never called back, but then I remembered that he was supposed to be on vacation, so I didn't worry when I hadn't heard from him.  He never showed up for work after his week off, and after 2 days, his employer contacted the police department to check on him.  It wasn't like my dad to miss work, especially without calling. He was a reliable, dependable, hard-working mechanic.

He was supposed to retire in the next few months and had grand plans for his retirement.  He was moving to Alabama.  He was teaching himself to repair motorcycles. He had already mastered the automobile, becoming an ASE Certified Master Automotive Technician in every conceivable category.

It was a sudden and unexpected death.

My dad wasn't a perfect man.  He had his issues.  He could be crusty, cantankerous and gruff.  If you had 13 items in the 10-item checkout lane, he'd probably give you a hard time.  If you drove slowly, he was probably calling you a whole host of names you'd never heard before.  He could be downright hilarious when ranting in his sarcastic, yet not too caustic way.  He made people laugh.  He was one of those people other people call, "a character".

I knew all of his strengths and weaknesses. I knew his flaws and quirks.....a combined experience of time with him, stories from my grandmother and my aunt and uncles...and sometimes even from him, when I could get him to open up about his early years and the hurts he lived through. I knew more about him, and what made him tick, then he probably knew.

Because of that, I knew underneath that prickly exterior was a soft heart.  He would visit and wrestle with his grandchildren.  He would go to the beach with us when we would visit him. Every card he ever sent me was sentimental....at least twenty lines of Hallmark poetry across pink paper and contained in gold, foil-lined envelopes.  His Christmas cards were always portrayals of Mary and Jesus, even though he didn't believe.  He knew that my brother and I did.

As I sifted through my memories of him while planning his memorial service, I realized that my father had never yelled at me.  My parents were divorced when I was only two, so that removed some opportunity for irritation towards me, but he saw us regularly for his visitation. In 34 years, I don't recall a single incident in which he expressed anger towards me.  He saved that for that outside world.

He loved his mother and siblings, especially his oldest brother, Mike.  Mike was his best friend and the bond between them was strong.  I was always glad that my father had him to rely on for companionship, because my father had lived alone for many years. Mike was a constant in my dad's small circle of relationships.

My father wasn't a perfect man.  He wasn't a perfect father....but he was the only father I had.

I'll miss him.

My Family

The woman in blue is my mom. She threw herself under a horse, breaking a rib and her tibia, just so I would come up to visit her. That takes special determination. She's doing better and was excited to finally get me and my kids up there to see her and where she lives. She moved to Illinois about 2 years ago.

The guy in the gray tank top is my baby brother, only 19. He's getting ready to move out on his own to Chicago.

My older brother is in the navy T-shirt on the right, with his little girl in the front, and his two boys on either side of my mom. He's a school principal during the weekdays, but a giant kid in his off-time.

The boys stayed overnight with my boys--a cousin slumber party. We brought the Wii with us, which I think my brothers used more than the kids. There was some smack-down, testosterone-driven, competition going on up there, especially with the boxing game. Lots of trash talk...that's my family.



This is my younger brother, his wife, and their two kids--who are so cute that they should star in Welch's grape juice commercials. They moved up with my mom about two years ago, and have settled nicely into Midwestern life. We visited them a few times, letting the kids chase fireflies together. My boys would capture them and bring them to the girls who would giggle and shout at the glowing bugs.



This is my lovely sister-in-law, the wife of my older brother. She is very sweet, but was out of town for the last part of my trip. She has Huntington's and is just beginning to show slight symptoms. I was happy to see her, but heartbroken as we talked about the future. She is doing well, but knows her able-bodied, able-minded years are limited. We pray that her disease won't advance significantly for many years. She doesn't deserve this, nobody does. She has a pure heart, full of kindness.

Visiting everyone makes me wish they lived closer. It was great to spend time together. Hopefully, we can make it back some time without someone having to injure themselves. :-)

Out of Commission

I won't be blogging for a few weeks. It's been hard, in general, to blog lately. Having the kids at home for the summer has kept me busy and also made it difficult to focus much when using the computer.

In addition to all that, my mother was involved in accident with a horse she was transporting a few days ago. She was trampled and has a broken leg and possibly broken ribs. We are heading up to Illinois for a week and a half so I can help take care of her for a short while as she begins to recover.

It will be just me and the kids because DH has already used two weeks of vacation; one for my surgery and one when we were up at his parent's house, keeping watch of his father while his mother was out of the country. He also has some significant deadlines he must meet by the end of the month. Despite the fact that it means I have to do all the driving, it's OK. At least we won't have to worry about what to do with the dog.

I have a little side trip, to Mammoth Cave, built into our travel time on the way up. We'll be taking the Historic Tour of the cave. I'm as excited as the kids are about it. Intuitive Monkey wanted to know if he would get to wear a miner's cap, with a flashlight on the top of the hat.

Anyway....Pray for me, and my kids, and my mom. For my mom....that she would recover well. For me and the kids....that we'll travel safely....and that we all survive with our sanity intact after so much "quality" time together in a car. :-)

Birthdays, Bowling, and Beaches

Yesterday, we celebrated The Rationalist's 8th birthday. Although I was worried that we might have a repeat of last year's version, a few friends showed up at the last minute, making me sweat out more anxiety than is necessary for a birthday celebration.

We bowled, laughed, and ate too much cake. The Rationalist had a great time and so did everybody else. He managed to clean up with numerous gift cards and cash, helping push him a little closer to his goal of buying a Wii....or a Nintendo DS...depending on what he feels like in a particular moment. Being lame parents, we gave him actual gifts rather than cash; a metal detector, a pogo stick, and a Bingo Set.

We have managed to find a bottle cap, 20 nails, an industrial size bolt that was seven inches long, and a metal bracket.

We also have numerous holes in our front yard now.

Here are some pics from the day:









This morning we attended the United Methodist church we have been regularly visiting for the last month or two. We went to the early service and skipped Sunday School in order to go to the beach. I'm not sure how I'll be feeling this summer once I start chemo, and I won't be healed enough in June to be in the ocean. I figured today was our best shot to go. Plus, I wanted to do something fun as a family before I would be laid up for the next week or so.

We had a blast. The Gulf has warmed up to about 82 degrees, perfect swimming temperature. The day was windy, making some great waves for tossing us around. The boys love to head out where the waves break, hold onto an inner tube, and propel forward with the foamy water.
After about an hour, they took a break to create a giant hole filled with sea-water...their own little swimming pool, I suppose.

It's been a great weekend, and I'm glad we spent it enjoying each other.

Denial and Truth

"I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it." --Garrison Keillor


That's kind of where I have been for the last 6 weeks. The whole breast cancer/mastectomy thing is never far from my mind, but it's sort of been out there...sometime in the future...eventually. I only have 9 days now. On May 19th, sometime will become now.

I'm nervous and a little anxious.

I've had to prepare the boys. They have known that I was going to have more surgery, but they didn't really know what that meant. After the lumpectomy, there was no visible, outward change in my appearance. They knew I couldn't hug them on that side for a while because I was sore, but that was the extent of the impact it had.

This is different. Being somewhat curvaceous--maybe more than I need to be according to my six-year-old--this surgery will leave a very noticeable mark. To ready them for this dramatic change, and the extended amount of time it will take me to recover from this more serious operation, I ordered the book, When Mommy Had A Mastectomy, from Amazon to help me communicate what would be happening to me. It's not perfect, and maybe a little young for them, but was a good way to open the conversation about what would be happening to me.

They listened, and giggled every time they heard the word breast, but seemed to begin to understand everything. The Rationalist was the first to laughingly say: "So...you're going to look like this?" He raised his shirt and showed his bare, flat chest.

"Well....on one side...yes, I guess I will."

This was too much for him and he giggled and practiced holding out one side of his shirt, over his chest, and leaving the other part of it flat against him.

"So...you're shirt will look like this?"

"mmmm...sort of."

I had to explain about prostheses, reconstructive surgery, and that other people may not know after a while. He was satisfied with those answers. Intuitive Monkey had many more questions which he peppered me with throughout the day, but even he seemed to grasp what was happening and didn't seem too worried or upset.

I'm not sure how other mothers handle breaking things to their kids. I remember reading a comment from a mother on a breast cancer forum that amounted to,"I don't talk to my kids about cancer or breasts." I don't think I could take that route. Knowledge can wipe out a certain amount of fear, even if it can't completely annihilate it.

We have always been very frank and honest with the kids, and I think that has really paid off. They don't have to fear that there are things we're not telling them. They feel free to ask us about anything they want and know that they'll get a truthful answer...and for that I am proud and content.

Although...I know it's only a matter of time before we get the,"So, how exactly does that baby get inside of the mother anyway,"question. I'm actually surprised it hasn't come yet. Describing that process will incite even more giggles, I am sure. Hopefully, they won't think to ask about it for a couple more years.

However...The Rationalist did make this sign and affix it to our bedroom door, so maybe he knows more than he is letting on!



Gosh, I hope not.

:-)

Awkward Moments

Being a good parent can be hard when your family doesn't really know what the definition of "good parenting" is. Usually, they assume you are over-protective, over-anxious, and a general kill-joy. Hey, you turned out OK. They couldn't have been that bad at the whole parenting thing. Of course, just because someone throws you in a river, and you don't drown, doesn't mean they know how to give swim lessons.

My mom called last night to say she's coming down a week after my surgery to visit and help out. This is not a bad thing. I know she wants to feel useful and that she will enjoy seeing me and the kids. However, in the middle of our conversation about the timing of her trip, she sprung this one on me:

"Well, how about I take the kids back to Illinois with me?"

".....um....uh...."

"That way you won't have to worry about them while you are recovering."

"yeah.....well, for how long?

"A few weeks...or maybe most of the summer."

"uh......ummmm......," my brain worked quickly to find a way out of this,"Actually, I will probably be feeling fine by the time you would want to take them. I really won't need much help until I start chemo towards the end of June or beginning of July. Maybe then you could have them for a week. Let me talk about it with DH."

"What...you don't trust them with me?"

"Mom, it's not that I don't trust you...it's that you live really far away and the kids are only 6 and 8. Plus, are you going to stop taking horses for a while? Don't you have to work?" (She carts horses from race track to race track for the horses' owners.)

"Well....I'll just take them with me."

"You'll take them with you......For 6 hour drives every other day?"

"Oh, I'll make it fun for them. I know how to make things fun."

My internal monologue consisted of many unkind thoughts and groans at this point.

"Mom....trust me.....you can't make things that fun."

I have put her off, for a while at least.

It's uncomfortable trying to navigate through what is appropriate for kids with someone who never had an inkling about what was appropriate for kids.

I love my mother. We've been through a lot.....but let's just say that it's amazing that I am alive today.....not because she was abusive to me, though she did have a temper and liked to yell, but because of the lack of supervision we had as kids.

Things I remember from my childhood:

Riding my bike, by myself, about 4-5 miles from where I lived, at the age of 10, without anyone having a clue about where I was, or questioning why I had been gone for hours. I got on a bike trail and just kept riding.

My mother taking us to a movie theater to see Porky's...yes....that Porky's. I was probably eight.

Setting a flowery wall hanging on fire in the bathroom while playing with a lighter. I took it down and hid it. My mom never noticed it was missing.

Playing with the small container of pepper spray on my mother's key ring and accidentally pepper-spraying myself....yeah....that really hurt.

Opening the windows of my second-story, bedroom window and sitting in the window-sill with my legs dangling out over the house.....no screen.

Of course, all of these events convey what an idiot child I was, but also serve as reminders that almost all of them happened with my mother in the house, or nearby, completely clueless about what I was doing.

'Nuff said.

Intelligence, Snobbery, and Just Being Yourself

Assistant Village Idiot stopped by and left a comment on my post about my uber-geek children. I know he meant no harm and was offering advice, no doubt based on his own fatherly experiences, on cautioning against too much focus on kids being "smart". So, this is not a rebuttal based on overreaction to his words of caution, but is more my reflection on what being labeled smart or gifted means to kids, parents, and society in general.

As a child, I did very well in school. Well, let me put that another way; I did well when I wanted to. I was blessed with the ability to remember things very easily. I could read a book and retain what I read. I could learn a fact and have it easily accessible at a moment's notice. I could ace a test without studying. It wasn't that I tried very hard to be smart, I just was smart.

Actually, there were many times when I didn't try to do anything. In third grade I got a report card that consisted mostly of C's. In sixth grade I was kicked off of the safety patrol squad because of my reading scores. In High School I received a D in Health of all things. You see, it wasn't my intelligence, or lack of it, which was the problem, it was the latent procrastination that I believe was intertwined into my DNA, and the knowledge that I didn't need to do homework--though my teachers seemed to greatly disagree with my stance. Oh, and did I mention that I have a deadly case of being able to look at the big picture and decide that I don't care about A, B, and C in the long run; ergo....why waste my time and energy?

I have many regrets about that. I still maintained a decent GPA in high school, about 3.5, but it wasn't really representative of what I could have done if I had cared more and actually put much effort into my studies. I already understood, at that point, what Professor John Stackhouse has written in his post, You Are Your GPA, this past week. I knew that my worth was not measured by my grades and academic success, or failure.

Yet, I do wish I had done better, not to be recognized as being intelligent, because I was a legend in my own mind on that account, but because I feel that I unknowingly missed some great opportunities along the way. Part of that is simply due to the home circumstances in which I grew up. I was on my own. My parents had little to say to me about my grades or prospects. I did well, in general, so as long as they weren't getting calls from the school about me, then they were happy.

Unfortunately for my brother, who was not as able to navigate school very well, there was an unceasing amount of frustration and criticism aimed at him. It was horrible. I am three years younger than him, and we were just kids, but I remember feeling bad when I won a Spelling Bee, or an essay contest. I cringed that he would feel badly that I was doing well and that he would fall into an even more unfavorable comparison to me. It wasn't my fault that I did well, and he didn't, but I still empathized with him. Of course, I don't think that stopped me from throwing it in his face when we were viciously fighting. Sympathy only goes so far for an elementary school kid.

My father's side of the family was horrible about this particular form of criticism toward my brother. My grandfather, a mean, old tyrant, was especially notorious for giving my brother a hard time about his grades. He was without pity. Why no one ever stopped him, or told him to go @#%! himself I have no idea. Perhaps they had all been worn down by him for too many years to intervene on my brother's behalf. The criticism, coupled with the unending praise for myself and two of my cousins who also excelled in academics, was overwhelming for my brother, though he didn't always talk much about it. When he was older, he told me of an incident during his college years in which my aunt backhandedly complimented him by saying, "You turned out a lot better than we had expected." Nice.

Nowadays, my brother is a school principal. He taught 6th grade for 2 or 3 years, got his Masters degree, and has been a principal for about 6 years. It wouldn't surprise me if he was eventually a school district administrator.

On the flip side, while talking my mom the other day, we had a coversation that went something like this:

"You kids all turned out pretty well, even if I didn't know what you would all be like. M..loves being a big shot principal, A...is doing well with his family and work, T..has finally found something he cares about and is doing well in....and you....well I thought you would have been in France all these years......awkward pause.....I guess everyone was a surprise."

"um....OK....Mom, I chose to be where I am."

"Yes, I know....I just thought you would have done something else...." her voice drops off.

"Something else than being a wife and mother."

"Well....I didn't mean it that way."

But, of course, she did. How could I have used my collective genius powers to stay home and raise kids? How could I have sacrificed my IQ on the altar of caregiving? Knowing that my mother has no comprehension for the reasons I do what I do, I let it go and shook my head.

Now, as I raise my kids, I have to make choices about how to encourage them and keep them based in reality at the same time. At no point do I want to raise children who are supremely arrogant and overly proud about their intelligence. At the same time, I want them to do what they love and have a talent for. If they were great at music, I would find a way to provide them with music lessons. If they were great at sports, I would be on the sidelines at every event. I have no desire to force them to be anything, whether it's being a great painter or mastering chess. I don't want them to have to feel bad about being smart, and wind up throwing a Spelling Bee competition just because they felt guilty for always winning--not that I know anyone who would have done that. ;-)

Being labeled "smart" is a double-edged sword. If you enjoy it too much, people say you're a snob. If you don't seem smart enough, you're put down and mocked. It's the worst form of trying to make sure no one is "better" than anyone else or "thinks they're too good" for us, yet smacking around those who are on the lower side of average.

I think of my brother who didn't please my dad's side of the family in his younger days, and now has exceeded their expectations, only to have my mother claim that he likes being a "big shot" principal too much...in the same breath in which she expresses disappointment in the fact that I haven't done anything with my life. The message?--stay average like us--don't veer in either direction from where we are.

Intelligence can be used as a form of snobbery, but no more so than being a great athlete, or coming from a pedigreed background. I will not communicate to my children that being smart is the be-all, end-all of existence. Most of my parenting moments do not revolve around education, but around how they should behave towards each other, and society at large, in a kind and open way. I am still learning the ropes on that one myself, so I don't expect perfection from them in this area, but it is far more important to me than their math scores.

We don't call doctors, teachers, scientists, or chemists snobs because they are smart. We wouldn't hesitate to seek out expert advice in our medical care, or turn down a professor's class because they know too much. Why then should I temper my children's pursuit of learning and the enjoyment they get out of it? They will surely meet failure from time to time. They will encounter people who know more than they do. I hope that when that happens my kids won't label them as snobs because they know more, but will learn from those "smarter" people.

All in all, I think the message that it's good to be successful at something, so long as you're not too successful, is a bad one meant to be more soothing to others rather than having the best interest of the individual at hand in mind.

Community

We missed church lst week because Intuitive Monkey had a cold which eventually became pneumonia. He has been on antibiotics since Tuesday and feels much better, but still is battling a nagging cough.

DH had to leave for the ariport at 10:30. The time change went into effect last night. We started visiting churches last month, looking for one to call home. Those three factors coalesced into the decision to not attend anywhere this week.

Instead, we decided we would have church at home today. We read from Matthew, the passage about the Last Supper. We stopped every few moments explaining the backstory to the kids, explaining words like "indignant", "betray", and "chief priests." Both of the boys were very interested. They have heard the Easter story many times, but I think they are old enough to catch nuances in the story that would have been difficult to understand previously, such as the enormity of Judas' betrayl of Jesus, the false prosecution of an innocent man, and people conspiring in back rooms. Afterward we prayed for DH's safety as he travels and that God would be with him as he presents material to a large group. It's an important step for him and his job, one that he is eager to do, but one that's also a little nerve-wracking.

It was a sweet time. Even though I am longing for a larger church community to belong to, this morning my family was all the community I needed to worship. I actually felt peaceful and encouraged that God is still guiding us. May He lead us to where we need to be and help us grow together in community with each other as we search.

Dumbfounded

My mom called last night and mentioned she might be in town in the next two weeks. I seized the opportunity to tell her about my diagnosis realizing that my surgery was going to fall in the time frame she was talking about. I explained everything to her and when I came up for air we had the following conversation:

Mom: "So, are you worried?"

Me:"Not yet...we don't really know enough yet to know if we should be worried."

Mom: "Well..you know....I have a mass in my left breast."

Me: "What!?"

Mom:" Yeah...a couple of years ago my right breast was hurting and the doctor sent me in for a mammogram. They think the right breast was just a clogged milk duct, but they also found a mass in my left breast. I get a mammogram every six months."

Me:".........have they biopsied it?"

Mom:"No. They said it was probably nothing."

Me: "You're kidding me."

Mom: "No."

Me: "Mom, my doctor has repeatedly asked me if we have breast cancer in my family, and I have said 'No' every time. I need you to get home, talk to your doctor, and get that lump biopsied right away! If they haven't biopsied it, there is no way they can tell you for sure that it's not cancer."

Mom:"Well, they didn't seem worried...."

Me: "It doesn't matter! They can't know without a biopsy. Does your right breast still hurt?"

Mom:"...well...off and on."

Me: "Mom...I don't think a clogged milk duct would last for two years. You have to get this taken care of right away. Cancer doesn't always just grow from one lump outward. Tiny cancer cells can be carried through the blood stream to other areas of your breasts or body. You have to go to your doctor, explain about your 34-year-old daughter's diagnosis, and make them take this seriously."

Mom: "Oh....OK."

I could just bang my head against the wall out of frustration; first, because of idiot doctors who are taking a wait and see approach with my mother, who has higher risk factors than I do because of her age, life-long smoking habit, and former hormone use, and secondly, because of my mother's trust in idiot doctors. She suffered through a horrible surgery at one point, one that she could have rightly sued for malpractice. She didn't ask questions, get a second opinion, or go to someone else when she encountered numerous problems because of it. Later a doctor would tell her that she had been butchered and would need two more surgeries to fix the problems left behind by her previous doctor, who had left the state and his medical practice by that point.


rant over

More Catching Up

This past week I finally began telling people about my diagnosis. I started with DH's mother, a breast cancer survivor herself. I knew that I was going to need her to take care of the boys on the day of my surgery. She listened, was encouraging, and told me she would support us in any way we needed. It wasn't as bad as I thought it might be.

Next came DH's sister. She lives closer to us, about 45 minutes, and I knew I would need her this Tuesday when I go in for my MRI. DH is going to be out of town and the test is scheduled in the afternoon, right when the boys are done with school. That was a little harder. She was also supportive and encouraging, but at a certain point her voice began to crack and I thought she might lose control. Her husband had just been through a skin cancer scare a few months earlier after his biopsy came back positive for melanoma. They removed it all and seemed confident that it should solve the problem, but it has left a shadow in the background of their minds about what might have been or still could possibly happen in the future.

I actually haven't told my family yet. I made the call to my mother, meaning to tell her, but she was very sick with walking pneumonia and was listing a whole litany of problems that she was dealing with....so I decided to wait for a week or so until she was feeling better and more present.

After I tell her, my dad will be next. That one will be interesting. My dad is a cranky atheist. Curmudgeon is a word that might capture his essence. He can be good with the boys, but overall most of his conversation revolves around how stupid people are, how everybody drives like an idiot, and how the health care crisis would be solved if we simply stopped treating everyone who couldn't pay, and let them all die like they did in the good old days. And that is only the tip of the iceberg.

However, this cranky, atheistic, politically incorrect man can also be affected deeply by death and impending physical suffering. Many years ago my cousin's wife committed suicide. It was very tragic. She left behind an eight-month-old daughter and my grieving cousin. My dad was torn up about it. It was the first time I have seen him cry. Last year my sister-in-law was diagnosed with Huntington's, inherited from her mother who is now a bed-ridden invalid. My dad was depressed for weeks. My aunt was in the hospital a few months ago. She had gotten a blood infection that became quite serious. My dad was furious that he hadn't been told about it until after she was better, because she might have died, and he would have visited her if he had known. This man, so full of contempt and vitriol for the world at large, hides a heart that is sometimes difficult to see. I am hoping that he doesn't over-react to the news.

All that being said...I am doing OK. DH is doing OK. The kids know, and they are doing OK. DH and I have each had a bout of panic or worry overcome us at unpredictable moments, but overall we acclimated ourselves to the concept and are not as consumed with it as those first few days.

There is an obstacle before us. We will take steps to overcome it. We will maintain normal life and be present in the moments before us.

Thanks to all of you who have been mindful of me and my family.

Church Shopping 101

We didn't make it to our church yesterday. Even though we "gained" an hour from the time change, we couldn't drag ourselves out of bed to make it to the 9:00 am service in time. We huddled under the blankets and let the kids watch too much TV.

When we finally got up, we knew we wouldn't make it. Rather than go to the 10:45 service, we decided to check out a United Methodist church nearby. They had a contemporary service at 9:30, and we figured we could make it as long as we got ready quickly.

I really enjoyed it, but it left me thinking about what is important in a church body.

Looking at this unknown congregation, I started making my observations. Full service. Friendly people. Lots of families. Older people and younger people. People seem interested in the service, not drifting off or overly distracted. Communion served--yay! Music good. (really good! They had great musicians and singers)

I wasn't sure about the pastor because, as always happens when we visit a church, they had a guest speaker. I swear that has happened to us more times than I can count. We just looked at each other and laughed.

I felt good being in the church. I could see my family making connections there. I could imagine my kids making friends.

However, I also noticed some other things.

It was very white. And not just white, but a much more buttoned down white. Not overly stiff, just all khakified and button-down shirtified. I wondered how well an outsider who might be a little "different" might feel walking into such a church.

The guest speaker read a selected Scripture from Mark, and then proceeded to give a message incorporating the Tale of the Three Trees. Huh? I believe the United Methodist church usually has a scheduled portion of Scripture that is supposed to be read in a certain order throughout the year, so I get the reading. But, why veer off into a sermon using an illustration that isn't even Scriptural?

The sermon was actually pretty good despite being based on a folk tale. The speaker managed to weave in other Scriptures to make his point, so it wasn't completely off the wall. He delivered his message well. Still ....The Three Trees?

I brushed all that aside because he was just a guest after all, but I was left wondering about what was important to me in a church.

How important is the diversity of a church? How much weight should "comfortableness" have in making a decision about a church? What is the most important aspect to consider when choosing a church body with which to associate--the pastor, the worship, fellowship, outreach?

Maybe I could come up with a complicated equation to measure and weigh the various aspects of a church and give it a rating.

Let's see...you get a "9" for the worship..."1" for the corny jokes the pastor told..."7" for the friendliness factor..."5" for the decor--I mean, really, mauve is so 80's....and an "8" for the children's ministry because you stuffed my kids with Goldfish, sang "Pharoah, Pharoah, woah, woah, let my people go....yeah, yeah, yeah yeah", knocked down a wall of blocks to represent Jericho's wall and they were happy when I picked them up.

whaddya think?

You Decide

Brotherly hug...or...Head lock before the eventual wrestling match?