Tag Archives: Parents

And the Marry-Making Begins

08 Saturday Oct 2011

Posted by in Life at Home

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I woke to the rough sounds of my youngest son’s retching.

“Too much merry-making last night,” my husband muttered.

My better half has an understated way with words, and these, even laced with sleep, were delivered in  his calm, matter-of-fact way, while lying within dark unfamiliar surroundings of a downtown Tulsa hotel.

“Poor Kyle.  Will he be all right by tonight?.” I asked this with my mind racing ahead, thinking of that Best Man’s speech which laid crumpled on the window sill by his bed.

“Yeah.  He’ll be fine.”

I needed to hear these words from my husband of twenty-five years: Shoring up life with a few comforting words — when things go bump and barf in the night —  is what my husband does best.

Of course, thinking of tonight’s wedding festivities, I hope Kyle will be better than fine.  I hope he will be at his tip-top ‘best’, living up to his spot in tonight’s wedding party line-up.  But then, I hope we are ALL at our tip-top best, full of joy, indulging in more than a little harmless merry-making since this is my oldest son’s wedding day.  Have I mentioned — somewhere in a post along the way — that at six o’clock this evening. Bryan and Amy are getting married?

So what will this day bring?  Many merry-making guests dressed in their finest finery.  That’s a given.  Walks down the glamorous lobby aisle, which this morning, was still littered with rose petals from last night’s wedding.

To be sure, a few happy tears — courtesy of moi —  to accompany the speaking of age-old vows of “better or worse.”  Then lovely music.  And probably some that will not seem so to my way of thinking.  A first dance in a grand ballroom will follow  — and a second dance between our bride and her father will lead to the third between my son and me.  And if the DJ has been able to locate it, we’ll dance to these sounds of Carly Simon.

And then the “just marrieds” will cut the cakes baked by the bride’s oldest sister. a pastry chef in Kansas City.  And who knows what else?   Except that like the rest of life, the best moments will come unexpected and completely un-rehearsed.

I write this line thinking of Don’s mother who longed to be part of this evening’s marry-making, who instead is home in her own bed, weak as a kitten from a three-week ordeal that began in ICU and ended in a hospice center.  True to the worst of life, this was not unexpected.  Janice’s battle with cancer entered its ‘fourth-stage’ earlier this year — and this, solely out of love for Janice, who prefers to speak of the ‘betters’ than the ‘worst’ of life,  has been one of the ‘unmentionables’ flapping around my life of late.

Better and worse.  Light and dark..  Life and death..  In health and sickness — even the sort self-imposed from too much merry-making.  These opposites help define one another, don’t they?  And like in the case of my husband and I, who like Bryan and Amy, are a couple of “opposites-attract”, perhaps they also refine one another.  And who knows but that maybe, one day, this soon-to-be married couple will regard the other as their ‘better half.’  As I do my husband.

I do I do  I do.

Save the Day

18 Saturday Jun 2011

Posted by in Home Restoration, Life at Home, Soul Care

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“Life is relationships.  Everything else is just moving furniture.”  — Sister Elizabeth Molina

My sister and aunt are coming to save the day on my living room, which for the moment, bears an uncanny likeness to “Grandma’s Attic.”  My grandmother didn’t have an attic but if she had, it might have looked like my living room.

Saying Sis will ‘save the day” sounds a bit dramatic, especially when the phrase marries the task of rearranging furniture.  But the words just slipped out on to this white digital space, so here they will stay, in spite of reminding me of all those Saturday morning cartoons of my youth — the likes of Underdog and Superman and Mighty Mouse and even Rocky and Bullwinkle, who not only saved the day but saved their cartoonish worlds from evil.

This trinity of words stops me to wonder how many people we know — either now or ever — that could easily bring to mind this phrase.  In my life, it was Mother, for one.  With Father’s Day tomorrow, I wish I could say it was Daddy, but it wasn’t.  Daddy had his place in my life but it was not saving my world.  If anything, Daddy was one in need of being saved.

No, in her way, it was Mom who saved Daddy just as she saved us all.  She saved the day for many, especially in her prime, with all her wonderful bag of tricks — sewing, painting, restoration — but mostly just by dropping everything and showing up in my life and others  to set things right with her rock steady presence.

Sometimes, of course, Mom couldn’t put things right but it didn’t keep her from trying.  Over and over again she picked up the pieces of my brother Jon’s life — picking him up at Crack Houses, picking up Jon’s low self-esteem as best she could, picking up his trail of hot checks left all over town with money borrowed from others.  Only to have the entire ‘save the day, save his life’ routine begin again — over and over in endless waves of need — until Reality hit.

The summer before she died, Mom came to realize, that no matter how hard or often she tried, she’d never really be able to save the day for Jon.  Sometimes I wonder if this played part in her readiness to quit life here, to leave Jon’s messy life to bigger hands than hers, to someone that maybe really could save Jon.  Reality’s a hard thing to swallow even for superheros; so why am I now  suddenly recalling those ancient words whispered by another in a dark garden, with a trinity of friends sleeping on the job  of keeping watch nearby?:  “Father, let this Cup pass from me — yet not my will but yours be done.”  

What a brave thing for anyone to say — to admit one’s vulnerability, to give up pride, all semblance of control and their bag of tricks, especially with an angry mob bearing down on them.  Instead, this Savior chose to trust in the goodness of an invisible Father; he chose to believe that all will be well in the end, in spite of  current evidence to the contrary.

I do miss my mother, especially when I think of how she loved me no matter what.  How she judged me not.  How she took me as I am and not as I could be.  Or should be.  Maybe I loved her most for all of these because in these ways, she bore the greatest family resemblance to one greather than her, whose sandals she was unfit to tie.

And in my life, on this day, where my living room needs saving and furniture needs to be shuffled around, Sis bears a huge resemblance to my mother and Father.  I’m so glad Sis is coming, and bringing our auntie with her, whether or not we move a single stitch of furniture.

Standing by Sis

03 Thursday Feb 2011

Posted by in Life at Home, Soul Care

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I was six and a half when Sis was born.

Counting “the half” was important then; this I know for fact.  But what I don’t know and can’t recall is how I felt about having a baby sister.

I do remember the baby shower though, where I helped Mom unwrap many gifts.  The party was held at Edith Marshall’s house I believe, located just up the hill, west of the church where Mom and Dad married.   I remember Mom wearing a yellow corsage made from baby socks — which reminded me of soft baby chicks — fashioned into rosebuds held together by diaper pins.  The pins and socks, perhaps, were a nod to practicality, both intended for the new baby’s use.

I don’t remember Mom going to the hospital.  Or Mom being at the hospital.  Or Mom coming home from the hospital.  But I do remember seeing my baby sister lying in her used but freshly gussied up bassinet.  I whispered a promise to not wake the baby so I could watch her sleep.  I stood as close as I could get.  And looking in past the new lace ruffles adorning the wicker hood, I found her small.  No bigger than a baby doll.

Christi was the only one of us Dad named.  He chose to name her for his best childhood friend, Chris Alexopoulous.  He and Chris met in 1943 in Cohoes, New York, a few years after Dad’s mother died in a  tragic auto accident.  Dad may have lived there a year — and, while longer than many places Dad called home as a child, I wonder now, how Chris became so important to Daddy, in so brief an interlude, that Daddy would name a child for him.

I don’t imagine Chris knows Daddy honored him in this way.  Nor do I imagine Chris ever realized the regard Dad held for him, that so many years after knowing him, Dad would find a way to ensure he never forgot Chris and the friendship extended to the shy boy my father was.

But as I sat here and write, I realize many regard my dear sister in just this way — in the same way Daddy regarded his best friend Chris.  So while Dad may have initiated the honor to his good friend through his act of naming, Christi has extended Dad’s honor through the way she lives her life, as she stands by friends through trials and joys.

I don’t imagine Sis knows the good she does through her simple gift of friendship.  But then, perhaps there’s nothing simple about friendship.   If there were, wouldn’t we have more friends?  Fewer acquaintances?

— Happy birthday, Sis.