My mother’s secret revealed

I got married when I was eighteen and moved to Virginia because my husband had two years left in the Navy. He was at sea more than he was home, so it was a mystery why I could not live with my family. But he wanted me in Virginia, so I obeyed.

Another Navy wife befriended me and helped me acclimate. I joined a church and got a job.

My father had been against my getting married and had predicted troubles; his predictions came true.

After two years, I saw clearly what my life would be if I stayed married, and I told my husband I wanted a divorce.

He was shocked because I never stood up for myself. I had been timid, fearful and compliant.

After he left, I started thinking about moving home.

Then my father called and told me I was not welcome at home. He was angry with me.

Now it was my turn to be shocked because I did not understand his anger. I could not argue with him, though, because what he said was true—I had only been married two years, and I was the one who asked for the divorce.

My dad, with his dry sense of humor, claimed he had bought a billboard on I-94 that said, “I am still paying for the god damn wedding, and she is already divorced.” He told me I had made my bed, so….

There I was, stuck in Virginia with no family support. I felt I was being punished for breaking the rules.

I didn’t go home that Thanksgiving or Christmas, and by the new year, I was in a deep depression.

In February, my older brother cleared the way for me to come home for a weekend, and I jumped at the chance.

Frosty is how I described my dad toward me. He allowed me to enter his house, but he was unhappy about it. I was mystified by his anger. I knew he was disappointed about my not staying married, but this seemed so extreme.

When I got on the plane to fly back to Virginia, I was even deeper in despair. I remember thinking, “I hope my seatmate does not ask me who I am because I don’t even know my name anymore.” Then I started to cry.

Fifty years later and just days before my mother died, she told me that after he left Virginia, my ex-husband had come to talk to my dad. She did not know what was said, but I could imagine because I knew that my ex-husband had dished dirt about me to our friends.

Suddenly, my dad’s anger from fifty years ago made sense. He had believed whatever lies my ex had told him; he had thought the worst about me.

I was furious because I knew that my ex had not told him the whole story, he had blamed me and not admitted his part in the breakdown of our marriage.

I realized I had been keeping a secret, too—the secret of what my husband had done to me.

Travel haiku

How is it I can

travel the world and still love

the beauty of home.

At home

Something stirred deep inside me

as I drove through the streets

of the city where my life began.

Feelings of familiarity and belonging,

rootedness.

My body relaxed into who I once was,

the girl who played in these streets and

later took the bus to the Main Library and

then hitchhiked with my cousin when we were young teens,

which, even back then, was quite risky.

The shops lining the streets are unfamiliar—

African braiding salons and check-cashing stores—

but the names on the street signs conjure up

memories from a long ago past.

As much as the city has changed,

so have I.

And yet, my body still recognizes this place as home.

And then

Just let me sort through this paperwork,

finish this project,

complete this assignment

and then I can listen to you.

Just let me clean the house,

do the laundry,

cook supper

and then we can take a walk.

Just let me mow the lawn,

wash the car,

sort through the stuff in the shed

and then we can play.

What is most important?

Why not do that first

and then tend to the rest?

My mom

“I want to live until I die,” my friend Jim said when he understood that an incurable brain cancer would soon end his life. He did not want to be kept alive by artificial means; he also did not want to live or die in a hospital.

My mother felt the same. When the doctor offered her a pacemaker after her first heart attack three years ago, she said, “No.” He explained that her heart would probably give out while she was sleeping and she would just not wake up one day. “That would be a blessing,” she said.

At the time of that first heart attack, my mom was ninety-two, still driving, going to card parties every week, living in her own home and enjoying life.

After that heart attack, she began to slow down a bit and cut back on some of her activities, but she continued to live on her own and to cook, clean and do her laundry. She was very independent.

Over the past three years, she has had several medical issues that landed her in the hospital for a week at a time, and each time, she returned to her home determined to live as fully as possible.

After an internal bleeding incident in January, her doc took her off heart medicine, and she went on hospice. Then we knew it was only a matter of time until her heart gave out.

When she started falling a few weeks ago, we knew she was getting weaker every day.

Her consistent wish was to live and die in her home.

With some help, my sisters and I were able to make that happen. The past three weeks, someone was with my mom 24/7.

Giving up was not an option for my mom. She had known people who did just that—they stopped doing what they had always done and just waited for death. She would say they stopped living before they died. That was not my mom’s way.

Just last week, she looked at a silk flower arrangement on top of a cabinet and asked me to bring it down. “I want to wash the flowers and rearrange them,” she said. I brought down the basket and helped my mom get to the kitchen sink where she washed the flowers. It was exhausting for her; it was also her way of living her life.

Last Wednesday evening, she ate her last supper. On Thursday, she was too weak to get out of bed and too weak to swallow. We made her as comfortable as possible and kept vigil over the next two days.

Hospice nurses came every day, and each one said some version of, “You girls are doing a great job with your mother.” We are not medical people, and their affirmations were appreciated.

After only two days in bed, my mother died peacefully on Saturday morning, surrounded by family. She truly lived until she died—a role model for living a full life.

Looking ahead

We celebrated my mother’s 94^th birthday last week. At a niece’s wedding last fall, people kept telling me that my mother is “amazing” and “awesome.” I got tired of hearing it, and I also smiled at the truth of it. My mother is amazing and awesome.

At 94, she still does her own cooking, cleaning and laundry; and she is still trying out new recipes! As my mother has aged, she has, in some ways, become more open to change. Part of that, she would say, is that we, her children, have forced her to accept change because we don’t do things the way she once did them. But, after a little resistance, she goes along.

My grandmother lived 96 years, and most of my mom’s siblings lived well into their 80s. One uncle died just days short of his 98^th birthday. We have longevity.

The thing about my mother and her family’s longevity is that it is a constant reminder to live as though I, too, have longevity. It is an invitation to see a vast future waiting for me to explore.

And, because I have had so many friends die young, I also know an early death is possible and that each day is precious.

Balancing those two realities reminds me of a large rock I once saw. One side of the rock had the quote, “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die” etched into it, and the opposite side had a quote about planning for tomorrow. I was more of a “live for today” kind of person, so I don’t even remember what the other side said!

Having lived longer than a number of my friends (some did not even reach thirty) and considering my mother’s advanced age, I think more about the future now and ponder how I am being invited to live into that future. Intentionality is the word that comes to mind when I think of what is ahead—living intentionally.

For much of my early life, I moved around—a lot. I think in all that moving around, I was trying to run away from my past, searching for something external to bring me peace—only to find that wherever I went, I took my history with me. Eventually, I realized that everything I needed was inside me. I feel settled now and plan to stay put. I am unpacking and looking to a future built upon what I have learned.

Are you more of a “live for today” kind of person? Or are you someone who plans more for the future? Are you able to find a balance between the two?

Christmas memory

I am thinking of writing a memoir and bought Natalie Goldberg’s Old Friend from Far Away to help me with the process. One of the writing prompts was the history of nuts in your life, which brought back this memory:

The Christmas season officially began in our house the day my dad came home with bags of nuts and candy.

Every year, my dad went to buy nuts and candy at Eastern Market—a wholesale market area near downtown Detroit with large, semi-open sheds surrounded by small shops. My dad took me to the Market once—to buy meat from the butcher—and I remember it as being a noisy, gritty place.

My dad favored the Germack Pistachio Company, where he would buy pistachios and an assortment of other nuts and candies.

Seeing him walk through the door with his arms full of large, brown paper bags signaled Christmas was near. Each large bag was filled with smaller paper bags, each containing a different treat.  

The nonpareils and chocolate chunks were my favorite (and probably started my lifelong love affair with chocolate).

My mom brought out a large, wooden tray that was only used for Christmas nuts. It had small bins for the different kinds of nuts and a spot in the middle to hold the nutcracker and picks needed to dig out the nut meats. All the nuts my dad brought home needed to be shelled.

Our nutcrackers were not the fancy kind pictured in the story book of the Nutcracker; ours were unadorned v-shaped metal tools.

Some of the shells cracked easily and the nuts practically fell out; walnuts and peanuts were in this category. Others, though, were more difficult to crack, and I avoided those.

We each had our own way of cracking and eating nuts—cracking several nuts at a time and making a pile of the nutmeats or cracking and eating the nuts as we went along; I cracked and ate as I went along.

My brother used his front teeth to open his pistachios, which led to red fingers that would remain stained for days. I would open one pistachio with my teeth and then use the shell from that one to open the next.

My brothers and I mostly ate the pistachios, peanuts and walnuts, while my dad and the other adults who visited our home during the holidays ate the more exotic nuts (Brazils and filberts).

My dad walking in with the bags from Eastern Market was one of my favorite moments of the Christmas season, because it was a sign of how much my dad cared for us, of his thoughtfulness and generosity.

I moved back to Michigan almost seven years ago, and the first time I visited Eastern Market and saw the Germack Pistachio bags, I was transported back to this Christmas memory from my childhood. I gasped and said, “My dad used to buy our Christmas nuts and candy here!” And I smiled.

What is your history with nuts?

Belonging

Small events make up my life. Gathering with family and friends, work, hobbies. Nothing to write home about, as they used to say.

I’ve never had a major impact. I’ve not filled a concert hall or invented a gadget or discovered anything scientific or won a Pulitzer Prize (or any prize for that matter, except that time I won second place in a 10K race).

I wonder how it feels to stand before a large crowd and hear their applause, accept their praise.

Praise comes to me in small doses. “That was so kind of you,” a friend says. “How thoughtful,” says another.

I collect them—these acknowledgements that someone has seen me, that I made a difference—and savor each one.

When I let the dog out early on fall mornings before the sun has risen, I look toward the lake where the sky is dark and see in that black sky the moon and stars extending forever.

I am part of the vastness of the universe.

What really matters

My mother used a wringer washer until the mid-1990’s and always hung her clothes on the line in the yard. We had a dryer, but why use it when the sun and wind would do the job for free? She prepared a full breakfast for us every morning and a meat-and-potatoes dinner every night. My parents grew up during the Great Depression and were frugal; we lived within our means, and our means were meager.

We lived simply, reusing and recycling long before it was fashionable.

I have continued some of my mother’s traditions. I still hang my laundry on the line in my yard, eat a full breakfast every morning and cook dinner more often than I eat out. By most people’s standards, I am quite frugal—wearing clothes until they wear out, baking from scratch and keeping cars until they die.

My father taught me that we all “put our pants on one leg at a time.” He respected people who had earned his respect. In his eyes, no one person was better than anyone else, and he kowtowed to no one. From him, I learned to view all people as equals.

In my mid-twenties, I spent my lunch hour swimming in a hotel pool across the street from my office. One day, another swimmer approached me. He and his friends were staying at the hotel for a few days, and he asked if I could recommend a restaurant. I explained that I was new to town so I could not help them. He asked where I was from. “Detroit,” I said.

“Hey, Bob,” he called to one of his friends. “She is from Detroit, too.” Bob came over and we chatted about Detroit for a bit.

The next day’s newspaper featured a picture of Bob and his friends—he was Bob Seger, and I had no clue. I wondered if he was offended that I did not know who he was (since he was obviously famous) or if he found it refreshing that someone who was the age of his fan base was oblivious.

Twenty years later, a friend suggested I get a television so I could tune into pop culture. He warned that the trajectory I was on would soon preclude me from social conversations. I relayed the pool incident to illustrate that I was never into pop culture, nor was I much interested in conversations about celebrities.

Trends have passed me by, and I am ok with that. I don’t know one fashion designer from another, and I don’t care.

What matters to me is more basic than celebrities, trends or labels.

I care about how ordinary people are living their lives—people who are facing challenges and difficulties—and where they are connecting with others for support. I am more interested in where people are finding God in their lives—those moments of transcendence, of peace and deep joy—and how they share their blessings.

In the end, I believe those around us are a much wiser investment of our time and energy.

Wonder

“You are a wonder,” Julia Roberts declares to her son in the movie Wonder. I gasped when I heard those words, because those same words were spoken to me just a month earlier.

Part of the group work for the Mind Body Skills sessions at the Cancer Caregivers workshop was a genogram exercise. I shared my family history, including the abuse, alcoholism, mental illness and suicides.

“How did you survive?” someone asked.

“The grace of God,” I replied.

“You are a wonder,” our group leader declared.

Ever since I was eight years old, I knew that God had called me in some special way and that God protected me.

Perhaps I was not physically safe, but my person—my essence, my spirit and soul, the parts of me that mattered most—were safe. God snatched me up and held me.

As a child, I felt as if I lived two lives—one inside my body and the other outside of it—and I felt both visible and invisible. I seemed to go unnoticed and my needs unattended to (invisible) but trauma happened to me (visible). I could not solve the mystery of this paradox; my only hope was in God.

I had good reason to trust God, because I knew what God had done for Jesus. I related to Jesus as an innocent victim and rejoiced in God’s intervention.

It took a lot of time (and some intense therapy) to get over the confusing messages of my childhood. At some point I realized I was always going to be broken and in need of healing; I would always be healing but never healed.

The introduction of a twelve-step program for adult children of alcoholics was a game-changer for me. Here were my people, others who had similar childhoods, who understood the paradoxes, who asked similar questions. We spoke the same language and shared knowing looks. I had come home.

One thing I did not share, though, was my having been called by God when I was eight. Like other paradoxes, this one made no sense. Why would God choose me? I was clearly damaged. I was not going to become a saint—or any kind of holy person. I was always going to be in need of healing, always seeking wholeness.

I recently read The Deepest Well by Nadine Burke Harris, M.D. about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). Toward the end of the book, Dr. Harris concludes that not all people who experienced childhood trauma are suffering. “In some people, adversity can foster perseverance, deepen empathy, strengthen the resolve to protect, and spark mini-superpowers, but in all people, it gets under our skin and into our DNA, and it becomes an important part of who we are.” (Page 218)

I am one of those whose early misfortune was transformed into gift. I can see the blessing in the curse and know that everything is possible with God, even bringing wholeness to a family tree with snapped branches.

It is a wonder.