The Things We Leave Behind

Every spring I vow to myself that this will be the year I drastically pare down the "stuff" I've accumulated, though so far I've been less than successful.  Oh, I throw plenty away, too - old birthday cards, wedding programs, funeral mass cards and magazines, but I'm still left with too many things I can't seem to bring myself to part with.

On the closet shelf in one of our guest rooms there are about seven boxes filled with an assortment of photographs.  There is another box like it in the closet under the stairs and another one still in the garage.  These photos - some of which are horribly bad - are a potpourri of my life.  There are my baby pictures, chunky monkey baby Linda in a sundress and bonnet (what can I say - it was the Fifties); my sister and I at about 7 and 9 years old respectively with our pixie haircuts in matching short sets; wedding pictures for my parents and Mike and I and scads of miscellaneous photos of aunts, uncles, cousins, friends - you name it.  There are also a sizeable number of old family photos that I've inherited of my grandparents and their siblings, most of whom were long gone by the time I was born.  On the back in faded blue ink there will be a short description - "At Cedar Lake" or "Chicago, 1911." 

It's sentimental, I know, to hold on to these pictures of people I never met, but who hold a blood connection to me.  I'll study them - relatives I've only heard of by name, frozen in time on a Kodak print with their glossy black and white finish and white crimped edges.  What were they like, I wonder.  Were they funny and nice?  Hard working or cavalier? What hardships did they struggle with that are barely hinted at with a half smile or troubled eyes?  I know some of their stories, the ones my parents shared with us anecdotally as I was growing up, but that's pretty much the extent I know about their lives.  Often, especially in the case of a more distant relative, an entire life would be distilled into one memorable fact - "Aunt Lizzie was so young when she was married that her husband would come home to find her still playing with dolls."

It got me thinking about what would happen to our entire collection of photographs once Mike and I are gone.  I feel more of a connection to some of the people in the oldest family photos because of their connection to my parents in their own childhoods and the faint memories they shared with me.  That connection won't really be there when my own children sort through the boxes of photos and casually throw old pictures of people they never heard of into large garbage bags.  It makes a little sad.  I imagine my children and grandchildren holding on to a picture or two of Mike and I as children or at our wedding - feeling that it doesn't seem right to throw them all away, but not knowing quite what to do with them either.  After all, today's generation saves images on a cloud, not in boxes on closet shelves to be brought out after dinner on holidays to pass around and evoke memories.

I understand that with each generation that passes, those that came before us are mostly just faceless names.  We know they existed and if we really think about it, that they had lives filled with happiness and sadness, dreams and hopes, but overall, they have no bearing on our present day lives.   I wonder, though, if some future great grandchild that I will never know personally will run across one of these pictures of me (one that saved the cut from being tossed in the trash) and hear a sentence or two about my life - encapsulated into a short string of words.  What will those words be? 

I guess I'm not really ready to let these photographs and the lives they represent go quite yet.  Maybe I never will and it will end up being someone else's job, and that's okay too.  In the meantime, I'll savor the life moments I've been given and leave the sentence or two of my legacy to those who are yet to come.

Family Secrets

On the face of it, to people who don't know me well, I may seem like the poster child for a bland and unremarkable life.  And though I complain sometimes that the scope of my existence is dull and predictable, the real truth is that the life I have now has been carefully cultivated and is not a reflection of  the cards I've been dealt.

Family secrets are obviously not in our private domain. The fact that this is something so rarely talked about makes it impossible to guess how many people I've known have pushed some uneasy knowledge far  back into the recesses of their mind.  Or worse, perhaps, let it fester in the forefront, affecting choices and decisions.  Defining them.

These secrets can involve someone whose life doesn't directly influence yours, which makes it more of an embarrassment.  The cousin who is an alcoholic; the aunt who has a cocaine addiction; an uncle arrested for porn on his computer - nothing you want to be broadcast to your friends or co-workers, but far enough removed from you and your life that it doesn't keep you up nights.

Or, conversely, they can be less sensational secrets, but the kind that have far reaching consequences like a stone skimming across a pond. Sometimes I marvel that decisions made by someone else decades ago has helped shape me into the person I've become.

If I look at things clinically, I can see that many of my life choices have been a direct response to my own collection of family secrets.  At least the ones I knew about.

In the last year several more long buried secrets have come to light after a bit of probing. It took me awhile to digest these revelations - to take some time to see how these truths fit into my life.  They were unsettling truths, upending the story I'd always believed - the story I'd always been told.   

Recently I had the opportunity to spend some time with one of my cousins.  We talked about our family secrets and the repercussions of guarding those secrets so ferociously, even within closed familial ranks. There were some tears, some regret, but more importantly, lots of love and forgiveness.  

I can be whoever I want to be, I've decided.  Family secrets  shouldn't have the power to  define me.  I am writing my life story day by day, moment by moment, and I am the author- no one else.  I realize that these secrets have influenced the kind of wife and mother I am, but for that I'm really quite grateful.

Taking it Literally

A few weeks ago I was at Target with my granddaughter picking up several random items from my shopping list.  After leaving the store, I gathered her and the bags into my arms allowing me to leave the shopping cart at the entrance rather than having to wheel it to the corral  in the parking lot while leaving a toddler in the car seat.

As I started walking to my car, a woman called out and ran over to me holding a pumpkin spice candle that had been left in the bottom of my basket.  I realized suddenly that the candle had been left in the cart inadvertently during checkout.  "Oh, no" I said to the woman, "I didn't pay for this!"  She smiled and shrugged.  "Well, it's out of the store now."

At this point I was already buckling my granddaughter into her car seat and was in a bit of a time crunch.  I thought to myself that I would just pay for the candle the next time I went to Target.  And you know what?  I did.

On my next visit I handed the cashier another candle and told him that I wanted to pay for it but wasn't taking it with me  -  that I had mistakenly taken one without paying on my last trip.  He looked at me like I was certifiably insane.  "You're the first person I've met that's ever done that," he said, "I've seen everything now!"  The woman standing behind me in line laughed in agreement.  I suddenly felt like a righteous, holier-than-thou goody two shoes.  The kind that no one likes.

Later, I polled a couple of friends and family members in different age groups to get their take.  "Well," one of them said cautiously, "it's really admirable that you are so honest, but yeah, it's kind of unusual.  I think stores like Target just build shrinkage like that into their pricing."   "It's not like you took shoplifted intentionally or took something from another person," said another. 

Let me take a moment to be clear here.  I'm not looking from validation from anyone - I just reflexively did what seemed right to me.  At the time, in my mind, it was just a straightforward transaction and I didn't expect any commentary from the cashier at all.  The whole experience and aftermath just got me wondering.  When, I wondered, did I miss the update on society's moral compass?  I am truly not being judgmental here, just curious as to when things changed and how I missed the memo.  Or was the reaction I got (pretty much across the boards) an anomaly and not representative of society in general?  And if a $3.00 candle is no big deal, does that hold true of say, slight exaggerations on income tax forms?  Or cheating in school?  Or any instance that is perceived as victim less, but may have given us pause in years gone by?

As I re-read this, I'm afraid I'm still coming across as preachy or as if I'm claiming moral high ground.  Nope, just puzzled.  And not totally comfortable with being "that person" but not sure at this point in my life I can (or want) to change.  In the meantime, I will most definitely be checking and double checking the bottom on my shopping cart.

The Trunk

I have spent the last seven weeks since my mom passed away wondering if I would ever be able to write about the jumble of feelings I've been experiencing.  Of course there is the profound sadness that comes with the grief of losing a parent, but I've discovered there are many more layers to the emotions I've felt.  

The first week or so I had overwhelming feelings of guilt.  If only I had gotten to her earlier, administered CPR sooner, maybe she would still be here.  I felt as if I'd let her down in the worst possible way and the tormenting twins of guilt and grief kept me awake nights and dominated my waking thoughts.  Eventually those emotions gave way to more acceptance and less self recrimination, helped immensely by the reassurance I received from her attending physicians and nurses. There is still a bit of residual guilt, but I am coming to terms with that and letting it be gradually washed away and replaced with the certainty that it was her time and not about me or what I did fast enough or efficiently enough.

 

 

As I began sorting through her belongings, I was a wreck.  Seeing her purse, still sitting where she left it on the dining room table, her reading glasses folded on top of her bedside devotional and her mail piled neatly on the kitchen counter nearly broke my heart.  Little by little I was able to sift through things and begin dividing everything into categories:  keep; donate, throw away.  I felt a twinge of disloyalty throwing things out that had meaning to her but held no value to anyone else, but eventually I was able to do this in a more dispassionate way.  And then, as I began tackling her bedroom, I found the steamer trunk in the corner of her closet.  I knew she had it, I saw it come off of the moving van when she came down from Chicago, but I'd always assumed it was filled with quilts and afghan throws.  Wrong.  It was filled with her life.

I found pages from her baby book in my grandmother's handwriting telling the story of her birth that I never knew.  She'd had internal hemorrhaging when she was born and the doctor told my grandmother there was only a 1 in 100 chance my mom would survive.  She had two blood transfusions, from my grandfather and the doctor himself and after four days her prognosis changed for the better.  My grandmother died when my mom was only fourteen years old and I'd never even seen her handwriting before.  Reading on, I saw when Mom took her first step, said her first word and received for her first Christmas and birthday.  It was as if I was reading an intimate letter from my grandmother to my infant mother as she faced the fear and uncertainty of a sick newborn and the joy she felt knowing her child would live. 

I now have two impossibly tiny white cotton dresses that she wore as a little baby back in 1928.  I lovingly hand washed and put them away so that if I'm blessed with another granddaughter at some point in the future, she can wear the dress and I can hold history in my arms. 

I found a postcard that my grandfather (an incorrigible bounder who I never met, but apparently evolved into a pretty awful person) had sent my mom when he was away on a business trip - back when he was still part of their little intact family.  I had never seen his handwriting before either, and though the stories I'd heard about him were generally all bad, seeing the postcard that he wrote to his young daughter signed  "Daddy" humanized him a bit and made me wish he'd stayed that person so I might have been able to know him.

There were handwritten recipes written informally in a notebook by my grandmother when "recipes" were called "receipts."  Although anyone who knows me is aware that cooking is not my strong suit, I may try a few out. 

I found letters of commendation she'd received as a young, single woman working as a medical secretary.  It touched me that she'd kept those letters all these years, but made me realize that she, like me, needed validation from time to time and the letters were tangible proof of her professional worth.

And then she was married to my dad.  The wedding album was there, filled with pictures of them, and hope for their life together.  Her veil had caught on fire from a candle near the wedding cake as they had leaned over to cut the first piece and my dad had heroically torn the veil from her head and put out the fire, so some of the photos showed her bare headed, smiling sheepishly into the camera.

I was what was referred to as a "honeymoon baby" so there, amongst the pictures, letters and memorabilia was the miniature ankle bracelet that I wore as a newborn at Woodlawn Hospital in Chicago.  My mom was 86 years old when she died, and knowing that she kept this talisman of my birth for nearly 62 years touched me beyond words.

Taped carefully onto a scrapbook page was a birthday card I'd given her, probably shortly after I'd learned to print my name.  There was a letter I'd written both of my parents while I was still in high school, thanking them for being so good to me.  I didn't even remember writing that, because honestly, my memories of those years were less focused on gratefulness and more on pushing for independence and straining under the yoke of their unreasonable (I thought) strictness.  In spite of the grief I must have caused them from time to time, she'd held on to this letter, choosing to think me as a loving daughter rather than a spoiled and ungrateful one.

These things - pieces of paper, faded photographs, letters and keepsakes were able to provide comfort and allowed me to feel her love surround me.  And for the same reason she kept them, to comfort and connect her to her own parents, I am able to touch them, read them and hold them as a dear connection between us.  I am still navigating my way and missing her every day, but I am so thankful that I have these simple things to draw on to help me through.  What a blessing these random memories in an old trunk have been to me.
I miss you, Mommy.

Tiny Joyfuls

This afternoon after all of the grandchildren had been picked up I decided to go upstairs and take a little nap.  It had been an incredibly hot day and the cool percale of my bedsheets and the steady whirr of the ceiling fan was too much to resist.  How lovely, I thought drowsily.  How perfectly lovely that I have the sort of life that allows me to do this.  In keeping with that thought, instead of falling asleep as I had planned, I found that random snippets of happy memories, dusty and nearly forgotten, began parading in and out of my consciousness.  There were so many, I thought with a start.  So many tiny joyful experiences that drifted through my life.  They sound almost too banal and inconsequential to list, but I'll share a few. 

When I was growing up it wasn't uncommon to find corner stores or restaurants that had screen doors with push bars advertising one thing or another.  You would go into the shop, the door banging behind you, and feel like you were home.  These kinds of places always smelled so good - a bakery, a candy store, a sandwich shop, a mom and pop grocery - you just knew that some wonderful treat awaited you there.  Popsicles on a hot summer day...  I could never decide between blueberry, banana or root beer.  Remember how they used to come as doubles and you would break them in two while still in their wrapper?  Or rows and rows of penny candy to choose from.  There was some magic in that screen door, I swear.  Now when you see those doors they're largely in modern stores staged to look nostalgic.  

I loved second grade.  There was just something so cozy, safe and almost familial about my classroom.  We sat in reading circles and muddled through Dick, Jane and Sally stories and  used Sanford tempera paints and water colors on thick manila paper to create works of art that were proudly carried home to our parents.  Above the blackboard (which was actually green), there were examples of each letter of the alphabet, written in cursive in upper and lower case that we would practice writing on our lined tablets with fat pencils.  Sometimes a big storm would roll through town and through the classroom windows I would see the menacing dark clouds, jumping at the claps of thunder and the jagged bolts of lightning.  Inside the classroom, though, it was bright and cheery and I felt so insulated from everything scary.  My teacher's desk had the peonies I had brought her from our backyard garden displayed in a vase.  My mother would go out to gather them in the morning before I left for school, wrapping the stems in a wet paper towel, then covering it with foil and I would shyly hand them to her, hurrying to my desk in time to say the Pledge.

There were so many kids in my neighborhood!  We played hard every day - venturing outdoors right after breakfast until being summoned home by our parents at dark.  During the day we played all of the familiar games - dodgeball, SPUD, statuemaker, tag, hide and seek, softball, jump rope and many more.  One of my friends had a fort her dad had built for her in their backyard that became a sort of clubhouse for us.  We drifted from yard to yard, pausing to play on swing sets, sometimes bringing out board games, progressively getting dirtier by the minute.  I remember my friend and I picking firm, round tomatoes from her garden, dusty and a little warm from the sun, and eating them like apples.  We played Milles Bourne under a shade tree with some kids we didn't even really like that well, but summer was a great equalizer and somehow we all managed to get along.  At night, after my bath, I would put on my babydoll pajamas and my sister and I would fall asleep in our bedroom with no air conditioning (!) - just an old oscillating fan and open windows.  We weren't afraid of abductors or predators, only wary of the stories we'd heard about hobos who jumped from the freight trains that passed through town and lived in the woods.  It makes me a little sad that my grandchildren live in a different kind of world without the simple childhood freedoms that I had always taken for granted.

Truly, there are thousands of these little memory snapshots that span my entire life (so far) that I can call to mind instantly.  They aren't milestones or life changing events, just the tiny joyfuls I've collected along the way.  Things like the scent of suntan lotion; the sound an oar makes as it dips through the water on a lake; fireflies in a Mason jar; singing along to a favorite song on the car radio or sitting on the bleachers at a Little League game.  It's the taste of water straight from the hose, sleeping on a screen porch while being serenaded by crickets or how you feel when you see the first snowflake of the season.  My hope is that you will go to sleep tonight recalling those sweet everyday moments that were woven into the fabric of your own life while savoring the new ones as they're encountered.  Sweet dreams!

Disclosure

Today my son asked me if I was happy with my life and if I had any regrets.  I deflected a little.  "We all have regrets," I said, which is trite and true at the same time.  "Like what," he pressed, "name some things."  I was driving at the time and concentrating on turning onto a busy street so I managed to not answer and turned the conversation to another topic as soon as I swung into the traffic flow.

In made me think about how much of my past is proper to disclose to my children, even though they're all adults and married with their own families. Well, let's see.... I was growing up in the 60's and 70's so you know from jump street that there's a few things I might not be eager to share.  Add into the equation that I was going through a major phase of rebellion (long story - remind me to tell you about that sometime) and the end result is that there are plenty of regrets that I've compartmentalized and filed away from my youth.

The truth is, I think I squandered some of my youth by making a series of poor decisions.  Luckily, I've never had to live with any consequences of the dumb things I did aside from the profound sadness of knowing that those days are gone forever and there aren't any do-over options.  Some mornings when I look in the mirror and see silver hair and aging skin I find myself so wishing that I could jump in a time machine and erase the stupid things and re-write my life history.  But then, I suppose, things might not have unfolded for me the way they did.  I might not have married Mike or had the great kids we were blessed with, so that does assuage a lot of the regret that backs up into my soul some days like a clogged drain.

Even though these life secrets are destined to remain secrets, I still wonder if any of my friends have memories of things they did that make them cringe when they think of them.  Make them squirm.  Things they maybe never shared with their spouse.  Now don't go thinking I've done things that would make the evening news because my regrets are nothing like that.  They are just some things that embarrass me or make me feel ashamed even though hardly anyone knows about them.  I have trouble imagining any of my friends harboring real regrets like I do.  In my mind, their lives were generally blot free and the worst mistakes they made would be ones they could talk about now over drinks and laughingly shake their heads while saying "What was I thinking??"  Then everyone else at the table would try to one-up and share stories about one night stands or smoking up in their bedrooms while their parents were downstairs.

I may dole some sanitized tidbits out to my kids on an as-needed basis if it helps to make a point.  And I have made peace with God and myself for bad things I've said and done, but the one thing I can't change is that my twenties are long and irretrievably gone.  On the upside, despite the regrets that I still hold in that secret pocket of my heart, I am happy with my life.  So happy that if I had to repeat all those stupid choices and live with those regrets to still be blessed with all the goodness that I have, I would do it all again in a heart beat.  I guess as imperfect beings we may all be works in progress and I am certainly no exception.  My son confidently predicted that I would be around for another 30 years or so (sounds optimistic to me, but we'll see..,) and there's still a lot that I can do.  Looking back, I guess if my twenties are the only decade that I really have regrets over, it's been a good run and I expect more of the same in the decades to come - however many there are left. 

My Entertaining Everest

Time to push myself to do something that frightens me. Not skydiving or snake handling, though I'm talking about something that strikes the same amount of terror in my heart - planning a get-together of some sort, inviting people and, well, entertaining. 

It probably seems like a weird thing to have a phobia about, but believe me, I'm a textbook case.  The whole process acts like a catalyst to bring out feelings of inadequacy on many levels and I've spent years perfecting the art of weaseling out of hostessing altogether.
My family can testify to this.  As anyone who knows me well is aware, I am a horrible cook.  Worse, it isn't just a case of me not spending the time to learn and perfect cooking - if that was the case I could take a class or even go to my mom for help.  I am just one of those folks that find meal preparation and cooking tedious and time consuming, so I've never bothered learning.  I jokingly (but not) have always said if Mike wanted a wife who cooked, he married the wrong girl.  I can make a couple of decent things, but none of them is "company fare" that could be served at a dinner party.

Problem #2 is my deep seated and irrational fear that everyone will notice my house is inferior.  Stains on the carpet.  Smells like a dog.  Dust on the fan blades. Decidedly un-fancy furniture.  Of course, my friends and family remind me that anyone who is a true friend would not be judging us on how nice or mediocre our house is or even how good of a cook I am - they like us for who we are and would just enjoy spending time together.  On a cerebral level I know this is true, but in my heart of hearts I can't seem to shake the paranoia that whatever event I create would be an epic failure.  Low expectations of myself to be sure.   And I've been this way for long enough.  I figure the only way to overcome this aversion is to force myself to do it and do it until I can invite people over without a feeling of dread washing over me.

I want to be one of those people that entertains effortlessly.  Spur-of-the-moment invitations for friends to stop by for pizza;  ladies lunches with quiche and salad; holiday open houses with fancy dips and hors d'oerves - I want to be that girl.  Some of the people who seem to have this whole thing down pat don't seem overly concerned if there are stacks of mail on their dining room table during these impromptu get togethers and nobody seems to mind anyway.  This is about to become my new mission in self improvement.

I'm thinking of starting of with an afternoon tea party.  Elegant sandwiches, delicate pastries, aromatic teas in hand painted cups - the whole nine yards.  I am not going to let myself cheat by just inviting my daughters, daughters-in-law and mom because they are my "safe zone" people.  Or maybe a barbeque or even an informal crock pot dinner.  Whatever I decide, I know that by posting this I am making myself accountable.  Even writing about these plans make me slightly nauseous, but hey, all the more reason I have to do it, right?

So wish me luck as I start formulating my plan to plunge into uncharted and icy cold waters of entertaining.  One...two....three... jump!