Tag Archives: Parenting

Flowers for Mom

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P&I drawingIt’s your birthday. You look in the mirror and you can’t imagine who that strange person looking back at you could possibly be–your grandmother, maybe? The family and your friends are all busy and far away and there’s a ton of work to be done, so the party on your big day this year will probably be a cookie or two after dinner while you read the couple of chapters you can fit in before unceremoniously dropping off to sleep in the chair. In the hours between that morning mirror check and dinner, you wonder where all the time went and what could possibly lie ahead.

And then you wonder what your mother experiences on her birthday.

It is my mother’s birthday today, and I am far away from her and have a ton of work to do, so any party she has will be without me, as it often is anymore. And having had a cascade of health challenges in the last decade or so, she will likely wonder at the speed of the passing years and the uncertainty of those approaching.

But I hope that, somewhere in the midst of all that, she still finds cause for celebration. My own collection of birthdays is growing, as are those of my sisters and families, and for all of these we owe a certain debt of gratitude to Mom for having had the perfect mixture of innocent foolhardiness and courage that it takes to become a mother, not just biologically but with the dedication of throwing umpteen birthday parties for us, coaxing us through the many of those days when there wasn’t time or space for the party, and giving us the love and support it took to each take off on our own and have our full lives. Small as it may be, the birthday gift that I think my mother might like the best is that she created a whole slew of birthday opportunities for us her family and for many others whom she annexed to the bloodline over the years.

We are an exponentially widening universe of what-ifs and why-nots ourselves, each of us growing up, growing older and asking our own questions of the unexpected people we’ve become, and finding and building lives and loves that, in turn, reach out further than any one of us could possibly do alone. That seems to me to be the closest thing to a purpose for existence that silly creatures like humans can have. A pretty grand one, at that.

Thank you, Mama, and may your birthday glow brightly with the expansiveness that you taught the rest of us, and may we pass it along to all the others we cherish too.digital illustration from a P&I drawing

The Waiting Game

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Life as we know it in the present day is characterized as a hurry-up-and-wait proposition. We tend to bemoan the pressures at both ends of the spectrum with something like a sense of martyrdom, thinking this push-pull unique to our era. But it’s always been so. One only has to study a smidgen of history to recognize the same complexities of speed and sluggishness, and note the same anxiety regarding both, in our predecessors.

Now, I’ve never been pregnant or had a child of my own, but I have it on reliable authority that that process is rife with opportunity to experience the perfect distillation of both forms of anxiety. I can say, from my years of babysitting and cousin-watching and then a couple of decades of teaching, that regardless of the legal or moral or biological relationship, the ties we have with those younger than ourselves bring out such parental fears, anticipation, dread and excitement with greater intensity than pretty much any other kind of connection can do. Terror and hope will always intermingle in the heart if we have any concern for the young, filling the stasis of Waiting from the moment of their first cellular appearance and well beyond into full adulthood.graphite drawingLife and safety and comfort are all such tenuous things, it’s a wonder we don’t all burst into spontaneous flame from the sheer tension of our worries and our desires. The only assurance we have is the history demonstrating that our forebears somehow survived their concerns over us, and theirs in turn for them, back into the far reaches of historic memory. The tipping away from apprehension and toward faith in what lies ahead is the gift that enables us to wait, no matter how illogical and impossible it may seem.

Mama’s Girl

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Yeah, I’m a big baby.

I’m past the half-century mark, don’tcha know, and yet the older I get the more I realize how much growing up I have yet to do, not to mention how much I am shaped by my genes and my formative years. And unlike many people, I find I am heartened and grateful when I look in the mirror and see my mother. There may still be hope I’ll turn out well.

It’s not just that I’m pleased to start looking more like Mom, though that wouldn’t make me sad in the least; I think my mother’s beautiful. But since we’re a pretty close-knit family, I like to think that enough of her more objectively wonderful qualities will have rubbed off on me over the years that I have a chance of continuing to improve with age in many other ways as well. To grow into some semblance of her patience and compassion, her grace and gentleness and big-hearted love is certainly a gift to be fondly wished.

Meanwhile, however, it’s Mama’s birthday. It’s she who should be getting gifts. But then, given my mom’s character, having her children turn out well ought to be just the sort of pretty good present she’d like most, and if my seeing her in my mirror confirms that the best I can turn out is as a good imitation of her, why then I’ll keep working and hoping and trying what I can to head in that direction. Hmmm. Maybe I should bring her a box of candy or something just in case.

Happy Birthday, Mom!digital photo

Anything Worth Doing is Worth Overdoing

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There was a boy . . .photoHe was remarkable, special and fabulous in every way . . . by his own admission. That sounds like a pretty smart-alecky remark from his bratty second daughter, doesn’t it, but you know, he’d be the first to tell you that it simply never occurred to him to doubt himself. Teflon ego? Naive puppy? No, he’s just a pretty cool guy and didn’t see any need to worry about it along the way.

People liked him; he liked them back. One thing leading to another, as they always do, he grew up and became, in various turns, a college graduate, a husband, a father, a seminary graduate, university board chairman, bishop, hospital board chairman, and oh yeah, all those other things. You know: the keynote speaker and community activist constantly playing both conscience and jester to the complacent. The nutty uncle who accidentally fades his snappy burgundy deck shoes to a flashy candy-colored light purple that becomes his infamously funny family trademark and then makes them the coveted trophy passed down from one to the next of all his nieces and nephews as they graduate from high school. The pastor who tells wacky tales from the pulpit that actually explicate complex biblical concepts and help to untangle earthly Issues for everyday humans. The bishop who travels with a phalanx of fellow bishops to act as bodyguard for their danger-exiled brother Bishop of El Salvador in Guatemala and escort him safely for a visit to his people at home. The respected administrator who sees a busy hospital through the building of a whole new hospital campus. The husband who woos his ever-tolerant wife with anniversary gifts of snow tires and garden manure but always remembers a card with an actual romantic note to accompany it. The dad who sends excuse notes involving kidnap by Green Gremlins to the principal’s office after his daughter’s flu absence from school.

My father’s stated policy, from a rather early time in his life, was that Anything Worth Doing is Worth Overdoing, and if it was spoken with a jovial wink, it was and yes, still is pretty much his modus operandi, whatever the endeavor. Underachieving was never an option and half-hearted efforts the same as not trying at all. This insight of his came long before the appearance of the modern day’s sloganeering cheerleaders insistence that one Go Big or Go Home.

photoDad brought along with him from his earliest years that sense of ease with himself and his place in the world and built it into an expansive view of what he could and should do and what the world could be with a little effort. As much as he indulged his playful and witty side (surely one of his most endearing qualities in his every field of action in life) he has always harbored a tender heart as well. Any practical tendencies of his that might be seen as hardheaded or stoic, serving him excellently in his many leadership roles as they did, were at their root driven by a deeper need to look out for others’ best interests and work to keep his own in check. All of this shapes a man who manages to maintain the unusual duality of a highly accomplished Type A leader and the Class Clown, a rare and gem-like formation indeed.

And today is that remarkable, special and fabulous man’s birthday.

photoAs it happens, he’s right, you know: anything worth doing really is worth doing to the nth degree and then just a little bit more. He didn’t get to be this advanced in age and yet still a ridiculously charming kid just barely beneath the gloss of grown-up-ness without having practiced that art well and truly. Happy birthday, Dad!

The Kids are So Much Better than “Alright”

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blue-themed animals digital collage

Surrounded by magical beings . . .

I’m just going to come out of the nerd closet and say, before anybody pounces on me, that I put “alright” in [actual, not the dreaded air-] quotes because, while I may like taking advantage of the musical and/or filmic references of today’s post title, I still live in the camp that says “alright” is not a real word. I am happy to muck about in very sloppy and neologistic nattering when it suits me, but “alright” gives me the same creeps as hearing otherwise very intelligent people say “noo-kyoo-lurr” and “litticher”. I am perfectly capable of making typos and thinking sloppy and inaccurate thoughts, yes I most decidedly am, but I really prefer to make my linguistic slips and slithers purposefully, or at least with an entertainingly Freudian twist.

But jeepers! That isn’t even my topic today, so correct my English if you wish but meanwhile follow me hither to the intended point of this post, if you please.

What I lay thinking about before and after last night’s sleep was how wildly improbable it is for a willingly childless person to live surrounded by fabulous children that, in turn, evolve into astonishingly great human beings and adults and even parents of their own fabulous children. Improbable, but true, and incredibly satisfying. And without the high quotidian costs inherent in direct parenting!

I’ve gotten to participate, and in my tiny way, to assist with the survival through youth that a few favorite students of mine aced during my couple of decades in the trenches of higher education. I’ve been a joyful beneficiary of sharing in the lives of some stellar kids parented by our many dear friends. Best of all, I get to haul out the brag book and coo over a single-and-singular niece and nine amazing nephews, all ten of them people I’m proud to have even met, never mind my being able to claim any affiliation with them. This is not to say that I am an exemplary teacher or mega-cool friend-of-Mom-and-Dad’s, and certainly not that I am remotely  like a Super Auntie. That honorific remains firmly lettered on the diadems of my own aunts and of my three sisters, who have much more polished skills and talents when it comes to that. And clearly, having chosen to keep my child nurturing to the second remove, I will never claim to be a mother, a form of sainthood and heroism I will always admire in its best iterations (i.e., my own mother and child-raising sisters and their rarefied company) but without wishing to emulate. I bow to them all in genuine homage and gratitude.

Me, I just got seriously lucky. And I’m aware of it, so sincerest Thanks all ’round!

What I get out of this uneven bargain is a starry firmament of uniquely beautiful human beings over whom I can marvel constantly and in whose shade I am pleased to rest. Our niece and nephews are, to a person, charming and wise and clever and kind and, oh, outlandishly good-looking, too. Handy that not only our brother and sisters but the terrific partners they chose are all such good genetic and parental material, eh? Among the next generation are scholars and athletes, policy wonks and writers, chefs, nurses, technology experts and outdoorsmen, teachers, artists, musicians, gardeners, and not surprisingly I suppose, wonderful parents, aunts and uncles as well. Yes, being as ancient as I am, I now have three fabulous great-nieces and one stupendous great-nephew (apparently the skew is changing). So the undeserved flow of familial greatness continues to sail me along on my merry way.

The great reassurance in all of this is that no matter how messy and inexplicable and dark the world in general may look at times, there are these bright lights shining through it all, bringing the frustrations and complications into a calmer and more graceful perspective, and moving it forward sweetly into the next generation. And the next after that. With art and expertise and muscle and good medicine, with hope and hilarity in magnificently large doses. Youth may be ephemeral in and of itself, but the gifts of youth are potent, persuasive and pervasive. That’s a mighty fine thing, and I for one am immensely grateful to see this at work in those near and very dear to me.