Category Archives: Life at Home

Old Fashioned Hospitality

10 Sunday May 2009

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Today reminded me of times spent at Granny’s, when she appeared to have nothing more pressing than conversing with those who dropped by for a visit.  It didn’t matter who came– a cousin from ‘the City’ or a niece from McAlester or even one of us grandchildren – Granny dropped whatever just to visit and make her guest feel welcome.

We no longer live in a society where people pause in the act of everyday life to load up the car for a Sunday drive and visit.  Except today felt something akin to the memory of those days.  And it fell out of Kara’s careful planning of a surprise Mother’s Day Brunch — pulling my four adult children and their two spouses together —  that grew into a gift that kept giving, as Kate and Glen came by the house with two grands in tow.  I hadn’t seen Jackson in several months, and just like a grandmother should, I told him he’d grown a few inches since I’d last laid eyes on him.  And Karson – one can never know what will come out of that child’s mouth –today it was her views on home grown lettuce.

Three of my four children left with leaf lettuce picked fresh from my vegetable garden.  Karson helped me pick and gather the lettuce I was sending home with her mom.  But as soon as we came in, while I was off in the kitchen bagging up the lettuce, Karson snuck off to whisper to her mom behind my back a dire warning not to eat the lettuce…coz she’d saw Nana pull it out of the dirt!  Isn’t it lovely that mothering can come in all shapes and sizes that even a five-year can mother her thirty year old mom on what not to eat? 

I’ve been a grandmother for almost ten years now.  And today, for the first time ever, I felt less like a mother and more like a grandmother, which I believe has more to do with attiude than age.  My days of motherhood were defined by fullness, by putting too much on my plate.  But today had such an easy spaciousness about it, with nothing more on my plate than whatever life happened to serve  up in the present moment.

Just like a grandmother should, I offered drinks and ice cream and old fashioned hospitality, so my callers left knowing that in my world, they hung the moon.  So when Karson wanted to play with the boy’s train set, I dropped everything to go bring it up from the basement.  When Karson wanted a scrambled egg and toast, I became her short order cook.  And when Jackson wanted to play his new Monopoly-Dogopoly game, we three adults cleared the dining room table to make room for a good old-fashioned, if slightly updated, board game.

And you know what?  Today I was top dog.

Mother’s Day

09 Saturday May 2009

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I’m not one to send out Mother’s Day cards. 

Oh, I have and have had the best of intentions.  But even when Mom was alive, I’d expressed my sentiments with flowers rather than Hallmark.  I’d buy a card and forget to send it.  Then it’d keep company with others in my large stockpile of forgotten and unsent cards.  Just the like the one I hold for my dear friend Ann.  I ran across ‘Ann’s’ card a few months ago when selecting a card for another and well… fell in love with it all over again and full of hope and new resolve I thought, this year I’ll get it sent.  But rats, I’ve missed the magical deadline again.  Perhaps next year?  Or maybe next week — with a sheepish smile?

You’d think a CPA who practiced in the tax field for twenty-some years would be able to meet a pesky deadline.  But no, that’s just not who I am, which may be why management took me out of compliance and assigned me to special projects.  I’m rarely on time to any event, even when I give myself cushion and a range.  Just last week I told my brother I’d pick him up between 2:15 and 2:30 and didn’t make it until 2:40 p.m.  Is this a sign of thoughtlessness, or to rob words from St. Paul, “not regarding others as better than myself?”  Perhaps.  Though much of  my lateness and inability to meet deadlines occurs while robbing ‘Peter’ to pay ‘Paul’. 

The way I best manage my flighty behavior is to avoid definite commitments – and by not setting precedents I know I can’t keep up with – like sending out Mother’s Day cards.  I’m helping my daughter Kara today so she and her husband Joe can go to Tulsa and ‘wine and dine’ his mom for Mother’s Day, without worrying about their dogs they needed to leave behind.  Last night, she asked me what time I’d be by for care and feed.  I offered up a big range – 4:00 to 6:00 pm I said – thinking surely, even I can fit into this spacious gap of time.  But what if I’m a little late?  Will the dogs tattle on me?  Will the dogs care?  No, dogs are so doggone forgiving; they never hold a grudge, even when you’ve not met their expectations.

So like the dog I am, I hold no expectations of Mother’s Day dinners or lunches or even cards, though by the grace of God, I’ve been invited to eat brunch with Kara tomorrow morning at my most favorite restaurant in all of OKC – Paseo Grill – which sits just a few blocks north of my Mesta Park home.  Kara is coming to pick me up, and I just love to be chauffeured around.  And if I don’t hear from my other three children…well, let’s just say I understand.  All too well…

Picking up the phone or sending flowers or a card is a lovely thing to do.  But really, can we just banish the official day, for those of us who beat to a different drum, who like to be spontaneous and not hemmed in by a single day?  I know my kids love me, whether or not they acknowledge their love tomorrow.  And I hope the four women in my life who sent me a card know how much I love them too.

To them, and to others like them, I say my heartfelt thanks and cheer you on from the sidelines.  I wish I could be more like you.  At one time, I pretended to be.  And maybe that’s what that card stockpile is all about.  But alas, I am who I am.  Not a thoughtless slug exactly.  But more like one who thinks too much, who expresses herself best in silence and unsent words and thoughts of love, who loves to pick up cards that express words that are true to her spirit, like these that rest on a Patience Brewster card hiding in my stack of unsent cards, but then forgets to send it:

“Through the Silence, I Send a Thousand Prayers…”

Survivor

08 Friday May 2009

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My Thursday night dose of reality television was interrupted by real life when my sister called worried about Dad.        

Christi was debating with herself — should she call an ambulance?  Or with the help of our aunt and uncle, pray  she could get Dad safely into bed, and that a new day would bring if not a new Dad, at least something closer to Dad’s old self.

Last night his watery eyes were vacant – to where had Dad’s spirit run away, leaving behind Dad’s poor old shell of a body?  Dad did not respond to words.  He had not eaten supper and it was so unlike Dad not to have his morning coffee in the middle of the afternoon.  To pull Dad together, Christi tried to stand Daddy on his own two feet with the help of my uncle.  But Daddy was too weak — or maybe too divided to stand. 

But just as she did with me, Christi found just the right words to grab Dad’s undivided attention.  Did he need to go to the hospital?  Urgently, Dad shook his head ‘no.’ Daddy may not be in his ‘right’ mind, but even in this worst of times, he had enough wisdom to decline the need.  

So now Christi was calling me for a reality check, probably knowing what I would say, but needing to hear it all the same.  And forty miles safely out of sight of Dad’s pleading eyes, I said all I could think to say.  What choice do we have, sis?  Our family has had more than a few emergency hospital visits.  We know the ER as a scary place of dread and dead, but especially for fragile elderly souls like Dad who do their darned best to hang on to everyday reality.  So, just to make triply sure, we went opinion shopping at Kate’s, before calling the ambulance.   

While Dad was outnumbered three to one, he remained undefeated — even as the ER team was getting Dad ready for his nine o’clock express ride, he was gripping Christi’s hand, pleading for a fourth chance.  I wonder if he feared he would not return home.  Tonight or ever, take your pick.  Both thoughts crossed my own mind.  If only we could save him from this ordeal.  If only Dad’s legs had shown signs of life, we might have let him crawl into bed, just to keep him safe from the pricks and the prods and the questions that he had no hope of answering without my sister’s voice.

But then we had our own fears to calm.  What if Dad had suffered a ‘minor’ stroke?  Would we be doing right by Daddy to keep him from treatment?  Against his wishes, and even our own, we sent him off to the hospital ‘for his own good.’  Of course, we didn’t add insult to injury by speaking these words.  But poor Daddy read our actions loud and clear, and even understood that while love was all behind and running through it, that nothing good would be coming  from this ambulance trip, at least in the short-term.  

Reality is so hard to discern, especially when you’re up to your eyeballs in it, even when it stares you in the face with vacant watery eyes.  But its easier to see where the good and bad calls are in reality television.   And while I may not like the final result of Survivor in a few weeks, I was happy at this morning’s outcome.  Not because I’m sure the ER staff made the right calls, but because I believe we did.   And I like any story where the good guy wins.  And even if its not happily ever after, at least Dad has survived this ER visit to live another day and to sleep another night in his own bed.  And for Daddy, right now, this everyday comfort is better than whatever’s showing on televison.