This week I attended a "Muffins with Moms" event at my youngest daughter's school. We arrived and as soon as she saw her friends, she dumped me for them, leaving me with the other abandoned mothers at the table. We talked about how somehow, we expected a little more. None of us quite knew what except we didn't like being simply checked off like a box on a to-do list. The imposed structure of the event was supposed to give us an "awwww" moment, rather than a sense of "now what?"
Except motherhood is all about being present and invisible at the same time. We'd succeeded in being moms to the extent, they could take us for granted, like the air. They knew we were there, they knew we'd sustain them. They knew, they could inhale muffins, exude confidence, exit from the table from their mothers to their friends, and still, their moms would sit there sipping orange juice, being there on call for the twenty minutes of time alloted to the event.
You get moms of all ages together, all for the same occasion. They talk. The subject was of course, "What do you want for Mother's day?" Those in the busy throws of parenting children aged 10 and under, wanted time off. They wanted a few carved out hours alone, with zero responsibilities, and zero pay back when they returned. The dishes should be done. The beds made. The homework also done. Dinner should be planned, and already started. There should be no forms, no papers, no last minute things Mom needs to address when she returns, and no reports of how because Mom left, everything imploded. Dad can handle it. Some wanted to go to the spa, others the salon, others the library or the gym, or a restaurant by themselves with a book, but all of them just wanted, off time without consequence.
The funny thing is, those with kids mostly 10 and up, wanted the kids who left home, who are in the throws of preparing to leave, home, or who are only sometimes home, to come back, and to spend time at the house, letting the moms be moms a little more, the way the moms who are in the midst of the little more, do not. They wanted to go out for coffee, or to get their nails done or shop with their daughters, or to garden or bbq with their sons, or visit some tourist spot they'd always held off on, because before, the kids were too little to justify the experience. In short, the Moms always wanted to be the mothers the other ones were not at the time, they were the other moms.
"What do you want Sherry?" a friend asked. "What do you want Mom?" my kids asked, quickly adding, "and don't say peace in the house. That's a given presumption and not what we mean." Well, it is what I really want, but I'd love a portrait of all of them, I told both my daughter and my friend. "That's what you said last year." "Yes, I know, and I didn't get it. So I'm asking again."
"Mom, you're going to have to orchestrate that yourself."
"Why?"
"Because. That's what Moms do. They make things happen which are good, which we'll appreciate later, but which we loathe in the moment. Like vegetables, like chores, like homework."
"Like dental appointments? You have one next week."
"Augh! Mom!"
"Just doing my job. I'll schedule the portrait too. Maybe we'll have it ready by Father's day."
"That's also just like a Mom. Dad will get the gift. We'll get the credit. You'll handle the details."
...
I'm grateful to my mother for her sense of humor, and all the times she handeled all the details of my life, and all the times I forgot about the details so completely, I didn't know she handled them. She was the air. Necessary, but not always noticed. So thank you Mom. I'll work on getting so I can feel that way about things, but I'm not there yet. Love you!
Happy Mother's Day!
Showing posts with label Father's Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Father's Day. Show all posts
Sunday, May 13, 2018
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Fishing
My dad took me every year from the time I was about 7 to go fishing on my birthday. We'd get up around 5:30, I'd throw on a swimsuit, jeans, sneakers and a baseball hat. My mom would insist I wear a long sleeved shirt. We'd spray bug spray and lather with sunscreen but get burnt and bit anyway. Dad would pack cokes and water and grapefruit juice that came in small tin cans and tasted to me like they might be simply liquid can, he'd also freeze a snickers bar each, an...d have grapes and sandwiches ready to go.
He'd drive us to get the live bait while I filled the fish cooler with saltwater and chunks of ice. We'd then go back to right in front of the house and set up shop with our chairs, four poles and the tackle box. He and I'd spent the evening rigging them, two with lures, one top, one bottom, and two with corks, one deep, one shallow. We'd start with live bait, and move to the lures if the water looked muddy or we ran out of bait because of catfish and crabs.
He'd drive us to get the live bait while I filled the fish cooler with saltwater and chunks of ice. We'd then go back to right in front of the house and set up shop with our chairs, four poles and the tackle box. He and I'd spent the evening rigging them, two with lures, one top, one bottom, and two with corks, one deep, one shallow. We'd start with live bait, and move to the lures if the water looked muddy or we ran out of bait because of catfish and crabs.
Now I'm supposed to use only the lure, because my hands swell for days after I handle live shrimp. I'd promise myself, I'd make myself remember the four days of holding ice and sucking down Benadryl, but eventually, the prospect of catching fish would overwhelm all common sense and I'd be grabbing those shrimp and searching for the fattest one so I could catch the biggest fish.
We'd fish through all the bait. We'd catch a few, talk about making gumbo, about when we caught 5 speckled trout, about the big red over 40 pounds I pulled in one summer, and the times we got skunked. We'd curse backlashes and faulty casts and compliment when we threw a beauty. Somewhere around 11, we'd break out the food, ravenously hungry, but the surf would call again, though my dad would mess around with the big fishing rods, casting and then walking back to shore. We'd stay until I got tired, which he knew was some time around 1:30-2. Then we'd load up and drive back, he'd make me gut anything I caught before going in because he knew I'd shower, eat and crash. You catch, you clean. That's the rule.
After a three hour nap, Mom would wake me for Birthday dinner. It was always the same, always perfect and always what I wanted; sandy hot dogs cooked over a fire on the beach with frito pie as a side and Texas Sheet Cake with vanilla ice cream for dessert, all washed down with a coke, or when I got older, a pina colada. It never mattered (well it did but it didn't), if we caught anything or not, I always loved those days. A bad day fishing beats a good day doing almost anything else I thought. I'd give anything for one more bad day fishing with my dad.
But it's been years since I've been able to really fish, owing to small children, living half the country away, and now, we are separated by death. I have a rod he commissioned for me for my birthday nine years ago. Life has allowed it to remain rarely touched. It's in the garage but I've resolved, this year, I'm going to go and get a line in the water.
Miss you Dad.
We'd fish through all the bait. We'd catch a few, talk about making gumbo, about when we caught 5 speckled trout, about the big red over 40 pounds I pulled in one summer, and the times we got skunked. We'd curse backlashes and faulty casts and compliment when we threw a beauty. Somewhere around 11, we'd break out the food, ravenously hungry, but the surf would call again, though my dad would mess around with the big fishing rods, casting and then walking back to shore. We'd stay until I got tired, which he knew was some time around 1:30-2. Then we'd load up and drive back, he'd make me gut anything I caught before going in because he knew I'd shower, eat and crash. You catch, you clean. That's the rule.
After a three hour nap, Mom would wake me for Birthday dinner. It was always the same, always perfect and always what I wanted; sandy hot dogs cooked over a fire on the beach with frito pie as a side and Texas Sheet Cake with vanilla ice cream for dessert, all washed down with a coke, or when I got older, a pina colada. It never mattered (well it did but it didn't), if we caught anything or not, I always loved those days. A bad day fishing beats a good day doing almost anything else I thought. I'd give anything for one more bad day fishing with my dad.
But it's been years since I've been able to really fish, owing to small children, living half the country away, and now, we are separated by death. I have a rod he commissioned for me for my birthday nine years ago. Life has allowed it to remain rarely touched. It's in the garage but I've resolved, this year, I'm going to go and get a line in the water.
Miss you Dad.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Hey Beautiful
Originally written back in 2007 for Father's Day.
Dad always answers the phone to me, “Hey Beautiful.” It always makes me smile.
My dad reads German theologians for recreation. He also puns constantly and loves Notre Dame, the Astros, fishing, hunting and 99.9% of all classic English literature. He is Texan. He is Southern. He is Catholic.
When I was a kid and he was mad, even if I wasn’t the person who did anything, I went to my room and cleaned. The thundercloud would roll by and see a virtuous kid doing only right stuff. This was the image I strove to maintain. I had figured out it would keep me out of trouble. It did, and my parents got a clean room out of the bargain, by allowing me to think I was manipulating them.
I remember him teaching me how to do flips off the high board and how to drive. He taught me to rig a lure for fishing and retrains me when I forget. He didn’t yell when I wrecked the car again. He met all my dates. He made me watch Casablanca and The Quiet Man. He bought me a guitar and a silver bracelet. I can gut a fish, train a dog and make Coq au’Vin today because at some point, he taught me. I cannot do algebra. He tried to tutor me. I know something of Latin. He made me take it. I scream like a banshee at Notre Dame Football. He showed me the game and helped me come to obsess over it.
Dad drove me to get ice cream when I lost my wallet at Christmas. Dad took me out to lunch when I worked at his office. Dad asked me to paint some crabs on the fireplace at the beach house and helped reel in the 40+pound Red Fish I had hooked. Dad danced with me at the Debutante ball and I wished, oh how I wished, he was at the table with me, for my date was boring.
Senior year at Saint Mary’s College, he wasn’t coming to Father/Daughter weekend. I tried to be offhand about that, I wished he could be there but knew money was tight. The Sunday before the Father/Daughter weekend, my then boyfriend proposed. That Friday, Dad was on a plane.
As my roommate and I got dressed to go out to dinner with him, Dad was serving as her dad for the night too, I said, “Just watch, the first thing Dad’ll say is “Why do you want to marry my daughter?” Annie laughed and disagreed. “I’ve met your Dad, he won’t say that.”
We picked up Marc, my fiancé at Notre Dame and drove to the restaurant, Dad, Marc, Annie and Me. No sooner were we all seated, then my father said, “Why did you ask my daughter to marry you?” Annie and I looked at each other and bust out laughing. Marc was left with two giggling girls and no help. He rallied. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Dinner was fun.
That summer I worked at his office. I went on walks with him sometimes when we were both dieting. We’d talk about food and how much we missed it. We’d argue over wedding plans, band vs. DJ, morning suits vs. Tuxes, receiving line vs. announcements by the band.
Eventually, My Dad sang the Notre Dame Fight song to me as I walked into the Church to get married. It helped me to stop shaking. I remember Dad’s smile as he walked towards me at my wedding reception to have our dance, but I do not remember the song.
Sometimes he sends me papers by his favorite theologian, Von Balthazar. I dutifully try to read the treatise, “Does Original Sin Exist?” but I want to scribble back a short post-it, “Yes. Next Question.”
Dad has had many heart surgeries, but the one I remember is the one in 2000. I arrived after the surgery had taken place, and sat in the living room with Danny and Joe and Jennifer and my newly crawling son, feeling how empty the house felt with Dad in the hospital. When we went to visit at the hospital, Joe and Danny attempted to move Dad by lifting the recliner he was in, and dropped the chair. I was terrified, but Dad was okay. He showed me the stitches that ranged all over his body. They had cut open his chest, taken out his heart, stopped it, cut away things and put everything back together and stitched him up. I looked at the long line of black threads on his legs and arms and it looked like a large black rosary to me had been carved onto his body. It hurt to look but he was alive and so I looked anyway. It was ugly and beautiful at the same time.
Just before we left, a former partner of Dad’s, dropped by to check on Dad. I had entertained a long-standing dislike of the firm restructured and Dad left. I occasionally called to jam up the 1-800 line at the firm but knowing this was childish, I had stopped. Seeing the man visit my Dad at the hospital, I thought, “Damn, now I’m going to have to forgive them.”
Dad held no grudges so I couldn’t either, much as I might sometimes want to…really. That ugly stuff still doesn’t matter. He still calls me and says, “Hey Beautiful.” because that’s how he sees me and how God sees each of us. “Hey Beautiful.”
And by saying that, over and over, eventually, we come closer to becoming it.
Happy Father's Day Dad!
2013 update: When I went to see my dad in April, his face lit up. He doesn't speak often these days. But when I came into his room in April, his face lit up and he said, "Hey beautiful." Yeah. I cried.
Dad always answers the phone to me, “Hey Beautiful.” It always makes me smile.
My dad reads German theologians for recreation. He also puns constantly and loves Notre Dame, the Astros, fishing, hunting and 99.9% of all classic English literature. He is Texan. He is Southern. He is Catholic.
When I was a kid and he was mad, even if I wasn’t the person who did anything, I went to my room and cleaned. The thundercloud would roll by and see a virtuous kid doing only right stuff. This was the image I strove to maintain. I had figured out it would keep me out of trouble. It did, and my parents got a clean room out of the bargain, by allowing me to think I was manipulating them.
I remember him teaching me how to do flips off the high board and how to drive. He taught me to rig a lure for fishing and retrains me when I forget. He didn’t yell when I wrecked the car again. He met all my dates. He made me watch Casablanca and The Quiet Man. He bought me a guitar and a silver bracelet. I can gut a fish, train a dog and make Coq au’Vin today because at some point, he taught me. I cannot do algebra. He tried to tutor me. I know something of Latin. He made me take it. I scream like a banshee at Notre Dame Football. He showed me the game and helped me come to obsess over it.
Dad drove me to get ice cream when I lost my wallet at Christmas. Dad took me out to lunch when I worked at his office. Dad asked me to paint some crabs on the fireplace at the beach house and helped reel in the 40+pound Red Fish I had hooked. Dad danced with me at the Debutante ball and I wished, oh how I wished, he was at the table with me, for my date was boring.
Senior year at Saint Mary’s College, he wasn’t coming to Father/Daughter weekend. I tried to be offhand about that, I wished he could be there but knew money was tight. The Sunday before the Father/Daughter weekend, my then boyfriend proposed. That Friday, Dad was on a plane.
As my roommate and I got dressed to go out to dinner with him, Dad was serving as her dad for the night too, I said, “Just watch, the first thing Dad’ll say is “Why do you want to marry my daughter?” Annie laughed and disagreed. “I’ve met your Dad, he won’t say that.”
We picked up Marc, my fiancé at Notre Dame and drove to the restaurant, Dad, Marc, Annie and Me. No sooner were we all seated, then my father said, “Why did you ask my daughter to marry you?” Annie and I looked at each other and bust out laughing. Marc was left with two giggling girls and no help. He rallied. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Dinner was fun.
That summer I worked at his office. I went on walks with him sometimes when we were both dieting. We’d talk about food and how much we missed it. We’d argue over wedding plans, band vs. DJ, morning suits vs. Tuxes, receiving line vs. announcements by the band.
Eventually, My Dad sang the Notre Dame Fight song to me as I walked into the Church to get married. It helped me to stop shaking. I remember Dad’s smile as he walked towards me at my wedding reception to have our dance, but I do not remember the song.
Sometimes he sends me papers by his favorite theologian, Von Balthazar. I dutifully try to read the treatise, “Does Original Sin Exist?” but I want to scribble back a short post-it, “Yes. Next Question.”
Dad has had many heart surgeries, but the one I remember is the one in 2000. I arrived after the surgery had taken place, and sat in the living room with Danny and Joe and Jennifer and my newly crawling son, feeling how empty the house felt with Dad in the hospital. When we went to visit at the hospital, Joe and Danny attempted to move Dad by lifting the recliner he was in, and dropped the chair. I was terrified, but Dad was okay. He showed me the stitches that ranged all over his body. They had cut open his chest, taken out his heart, stopped it, cut away things and put everything back together and stitched him up. I looked at the long line of black threads on his legs and arms and it looked like a large black rosary to me had been carved onto his body. It hurt to look but he was alive and so I looked anyway. It was ugly and beautiful at the same time.
Just before we left, a former partner of Dad’s, dropped by to check on Dad. I had entertained a long-standing dislike of the firm restructured and Dad left. I occasionally called to jam up the 1-800 line at the firm but knowing this was childish, I had stopped. Seeing the man visit my Dad at the hospital, I thought, “Damn, now I’m going to have to forgive them.”
Dad held no grudges so I couldn’t either, much as I might sometimes want to…really. That ugly stuff still doesn’t matter. He still calls me and says, “Hey Beautiful.” because that’s how he sees me and how God sees each of us. “Hey Beautiful.”
And by saying that, over and over, eventually, we come closer to becoming it.
Happy Father's Day Dad!
2013 update: When I went to see my dad in April, his face lit up. He doesn't speak often these days. But when I came into his room in April, his face lit up and he said, "Hey beautiful." Yeah. I cried.
Friday, June 14, 2013
7 Quick Takes
So my daughter is hooked on Dr. Who. As a sign of love and solidarity, I am watching it as well. She started me with season 5, Matt Smith, and the funny thing is, while I find it enjoyable, I do not yet love it as I loved Babylon 5 or Deep Space 9 from the get go. I see a lot of shortcuts in writing which bother me. The force of the character is what drives the narrative, without the narrative being always internally consistent. For example, the Doctor says he chooses his friends very carefully and that there is a lot of good in the friend he has chosen. I have yet to see the depth of that goodness in Amy, except when she is driven by grief to have deeper feelings for Rory and even then, she does not pause for a moment to recognize that in surrendering one reality (that of domesticity) she is also surrendering her child. So I'm not yet sold on her goodness, because I see her acting out of love for Rory, but because she needs Rory to be in her life. She still seems like a soul that does not want an anchor in life, in relationships, in time. She seems immature to me. I'll reserve judgment. But I do however have some life lessons from watching Dr. Who.
2. Weeping Angels have nothing on Active Toddlers.
You know the phrase, "Don't even blink." about the weeping angels. For those not watching this import from the BBC, weeping angels are aliens that look like statues of angels you would find in the cemetery. They can only move when you are NOT watching. But they do move. And their goal is to kill you. The image of an angel becomes an angel. Ergo if you look at an angel in the eyes and fix the image in your head, an angel forms in your head which will eventually as you fixate on said angel, come out and kill you.
Toddlers notice when Mom in a fit of stupidity eats Frito Pie for lunch and thus crashes on the couch. Toddlers think, now is the time to experiment and explore. With a 20 year old, 17 year old and 15 year old in the house, one would not consider this to be as dangerous as angels that make you weep, but they went to the closet. They got out the powdered sugar. They walked through the first floor. At some point, they figured out that this mess they'd made was bad, so they got out the brooms. My 15 year old woke me to show that our entire first floor had been dusted like a beignet. It took two vacuums, three brooms, two mops, two rolls of towels and said 20, 17 and 15 year old plus myself to restore order. They looked like little angels. I came close to weeping.
3. Father's day is coming up. My kids made a video. I'm very proud.
4. School ended today. Instantly my kids changed into swimsuits and had a water balloon fight outside. Stupidly, I stayed inside. One of these days I really must learn.
5. Yesterday, we had a tornado to the north and the east of us and we're not in Kansas. It took a considerable amount of persuasion to convince one child in particular that as strong, fast and capable as he is, I was not granting him leave to go jogging during the time when the warning was in effect. The sky I saw had looked formidable, like the gathering dark at the gates of Mordor, and no amount of exercise is healthy in a storm. After the all clear, it took equal parts of persuasion to convince littles to come out from the blanket camp they'd made out of the table.
6. Working on Penelope. It was easier to draft Helen because there were stories about her in every age. The story of Penelope is mostly the same, ergo I have to address how she coped with that sameness. I also have to figure out how she didn't become turned inside out by the long loneliness. Suggestions of books to read/research would be gratefully accepted. Feel free to leave them in the com box.
7. Lastly, a poem from my small stones collection.
All time has stopped
as my toddler
curls up into my lap
and holds my hands in his,
there are no words,
just an occasional nuzzle
and a headbutt when I'm not looking.
As far as he's concerned,
life is perfect.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
The Cost of Doing Business
This just in, just in time for Father's Day, kids cost too darn much!
By now you've seen the article that explained how expensive kids are today. I went to the government report to dig inside the numbers that created the sensational headline, "Ouch, that bundle of joy will set you back 234,900.00!"
It's the number that always makes the story buzz along.
The first thing that makes the number high, is the equation. Whether single or married, the formula uses Pre-tax income as the starting point. We all know that our pre-tax income is an imaginary number. This slight of hand alone inflates the figure regardless of where one shakes out in the economic scale.
Statistical analysis took regional locale into account as a factor of housing cost, calculating the price of a bedroom to a house+utilities as indicative of the cost of housing a child. If you double up your kiddos in a bedroom, some of that cost is halved. However, the scary number still looms dangerously close to 1/4 of a million.
So let's look at that number for raising a child. If we divide 234,900 by the 17 years, we discover it comes out to...$13,817.64 a year.
Not so scary.
Not so sexy a headline either.
And remember, the number is inflated by using the pretax number as the starting point.
The scariest thing of this study was not the numbers, not the cost, or even the fact that our government spends time doing this annually. The scary thing was the why of this analysis, and the subtext commentary in the study itself:
The time involved in rearing children is considerable and has a cost attached to it. A recent study found that the imputed value of parental time spent on children exceeded the direct cash expenditures on them (Folbre, 2008). In addition, to care for children, current earnings and future career opportunities may be diminished because of job choice or reduced time in the labor force for one or both parents. These situations also have a cost attached to them.
The direct and indirect costs of raising children are considerable, absorbing a major share of the household budget. On the other hand, these costs may be outweighed by the benefits of children.
Here's the report if you want to go in and calculate the numbers yourself: Cost of a kid as estimated by the government.
Implication of that final concluding sentence of the report: The benefits of children MIGHT NOT outweigh the economic costs.
So remember folks, the government is here to keep you on the economic up and up. Free birth control and abortion for everyone!
Oh...and the picture for the article has been modified so that it only shows a shot of the cute baby. It used to have the cute baby adjacent to a photo of this:
Cost of a Ferrari (2009) F430 --up to $217,310. That doesn't include interest cost on the financing...can you finance a Ferrari? Is that even possible? Can a Ferrari last 17 years? Would you want to make car payments of $1065 a month every year for 17 years without ever getting even so much as a Happy Owner's day card in return? Will the car run as well when it is paid off? A 17 year old runs much better than a 1 year old, so a kid grows as an investment...whereas a car...well, my newer car is a 2008. I'm still paying for it. My newest son is also a 2008, but I think my four year old is much better looking and cooler too and worth every penny.
Yeah...I like cars too...but this little Italian is MUCH better than a Ferrari.
But since tomorrow is Father's day, Dad's ten would be super sports cars are going to be mulching and weeding and trimming the trees.
Wonder how the government weighs/calculates the values of being charged in the morning in a mad scramble to hug my husband's legs, or the run to the table if mom and dad say, "Let's play cards." or the grins they give when they get solo time for whatever reason doing whatever it is...I know what I call time with my dad...the same thing my kids do with theirs....priceless.
By now you've seen the article that explained how expensive kids are today. I went to the government report to dig inside the numbers that created the sensational headline, "Ouch, that bundle of joy will set you back 234,900.00!"
Don't tell me I'm not worth it.
It's the number that always makes the story buzz along.
The first thing that makes the number high, is the equation. Whether single or married, the formula uses Pre-tax income as the starting point. We all know that our pre-tax income is an imaginary number. This slight of hand alone inflates the figure regardless of where one shakes out in the economic scale.
Statistical analysis took regional locale into account as a factor of housing cost, calculating the price of a bedroom to a house+utilities as indicative of the cost of housing a child. If you double up your kiddos in a bedroom, some of that cost is halved. However, the scary number still looms dangerously close to 1/4 of a million.
So let's look at that number for raising a child. If we divide 234,900 by the 17 years, we discover it comes out to...$13,817.64 a year.
Not so scary.
Not so sexy a headline either.
And remember, the number is inflated by using the pretax number as the starting point.
The scariest thing of this study was not the numbers, not the cost, or even the fact that our government spends time doing this annually. The scary thing was the why of this analysis, and the subtext commentary in the study itself:
The time involved in rearing children is considerable and has a cost attached to it. A recent study found that the imputed value of parental time spent on children exceeded the direct cash expenditures on them (Folbre, 2008). In addition, to care for children, current earnings and future career opportunities may be diminished because of job choice or reduced time in the labor force for one or both parents. These situations also have a cost attached to them.
The direct and indirect costs of raising children are considerable, absorbing a major share of the household budget. On the other hand, these costs may be outweighed by the benefits of children.
Here's the report if you want to go in and calculate the numbers yourself: Cost of a kid as estimated by the government.
Implication of that final concluding sentence of the report: The benefits of children MIGHT NOT outweigh the economic costs.
So remember folks, the government is here to keep you on the economic up and up. Free birth control and abortion for everyone!
Oh...and the picture for the article has been modified so that it only shows a shot of the cute baby. It used to have the cute baby adjacent to a photo of this:
Cost of a Ferrari (2009) F430 --up to $217,310. That doesn't include interest cost on the financing...can you finance a Ferrari? Is that even possible? Can a Ferrari last 17 years? Would you want to make car payments of $1065 a month every year for 17 years without ever getting even so much as a Happy Owner's day card in return? Will the car run as well when it is paid off? A 17 year old runs much better than a 1 year old, so a kid grows as an investment...whereas a car...well, my newer car is a 2008. I'm still paying for it. My newest son is also a 2008, but I think my four year old is much better looking and cooler too and worth every penny.
Yeah...I like cars too...but this little Italian is MUCH better than a Ferrari.
But since tomorrow is Father's day, Dad's ten would be super sports cars are going to be mulching and weeding and trimming the trees.
Wonder how the government weighs/calculates the values of being charged in the morning in a mad scramble to hug my husband's legs, or the run to the table if mom and dad say, "Let's play cards." or the grins they give when they get solo time for whatever reason doing whatever it is...I know what I call time with my dad...the same thing my kids do with theirs....priceless.
Living large...but not in a governmental sense. What would we do with ten cars anyway?
Monday, June 20, 2011
Father's Day
Yesterday I posted the piece I wrote four years ago. This story will make more sense if you read "Hey Beautiful" first.
My dad has Alzheimer's.
We don't talk about it much if for no reason other than, it hurts.
He is still Dad. He will always be Dad; but the shell of him is being slowly stripped away. Word loss creep first led to fewer letters. I've saved them all. When he visits, we get to eat together, to share the chaos that is my life and laugh a bit, sometimes it overwhelms him --which is reasonable; they overwhelm me sometimes too.
Alzheimer's is brutal and it's ongoing and it makes my heart howl sometimes when I know he's fishing for the next word, the next thought and they all get away. When my grandmother had it, I remember I did what I could to joke it away whenever possible, and I could usually make her laugh. "You always get to go new places. You always meet new people. You can claim you met anyone you want to and impress because we'll never be certain and neither will you." We had a good laugh about that as I helped her get her "doll face" on, she loved for me to draw her eyebrows.
Even late into the disease, Coco and I could still laugh a bit at this hard thing; one time she came into the dining room saying "This cereal tastes terrible." I looked at the silver tray she'd filled with granola and salsa. "Yes, I bet it did." I deadpanned. She smiled at me, she knew it was a bit of a rub. The ability to joke at it took some of the razor edge off, but this time, I can't laugh.
It's too close, too near, too sharp and too soon. Even though it's been ongoing, it still feels like a hard slap whenever we get to a new barrier of "we can't." and that's made harder by being only able to walk in spirit with my folks on this road to the cross because we live so far away.
Dad's still here and sometimes, he's really still here. He can sing with his son if his son coaxes him along and he loves his grandchildren fiercely. He knows the mass and he tries to read things. Sometimes he can.
He still laughs at movies and enjoys company and wants to participate and Mom fiercely takes every opportunity to bring him to those places and people he loves as often as possible.
So today, I am grateful I wrote that piece back in 2007 so I could have a mental snapshot of some of the wonderful things my Dad is; because Alzheimer's can make everyone else forget what was wonderful and magnificent and beautiful about a person over time, as they are less able to be present and witness to others. It is then that those that love the person who has Alzheimer's must do the remembering.
Christ understood how we remember, by analogy, by familiarity, by meals, by ritual, by words. I at the very least, am not a linear thinker and as such, can tell you the lyrics of a song but not which year the song came out. It gives the impression of someone who jumps from thought to thought, because in reality, that is how my brain operates, in lots of jumps and arcs, very little of my thought process is a grid.
I miss the hooks to old jokes and puns and memories that Dad by citing six thousand books (all of which he had read and I should read by the way) in a single conversation would prompt. I have to prompt them myself to recall his teaching me how to tie knots for a boat, to play poker and make a pina colada. He also cultivated in me a love of Catholic writers that continues to deepen to this day but that seed took a long time to germinate. When we drove across country in a car where only one side door opened when I finished graduate school, he had me read City of God aloud to keep us from growing bored on the road. I told him that sometimes the tone felt like Saint Augustine would walk through town, see something that ticked him off and go back to his room to write it up as an op-ed. He laughed. He'd send me books and articles hoping one day I'd be caught on fire by the stuff. It took, but it took the better part of the past 20 years and now, it is my bed time reading and I wish I wish I wish I could really share it with him.
I can remember him chopping ingredients for gumbo and thus the gumbo recipe. I can remember him strumming the guitar and singing, I've taught some of those songs to my children. They don't always get why I love the song "My old man's a sailor..." but that's okay, hearing their voices evokes his voice; and I get a lump in my throat at church when I hear him sing; it would make me stop singing to listen, but then he'd give me a glare as if to say, "Why aren't You singing?" because that's what we're supposed to be doing at that point.
When a person has Alzheimer's, the first thing to go, are words. They can't remember the word they wanted, the memory evoked won't come into focus, the present goes out of focus and everything is as it isn't. The world becomes a confusing tide of memory, present and unexplained gaps and holes where people and books and ideas and jokes and dreams and pains and loves should be. I don't pretend to be an expert on treatment or care or the long term process or an authority on this of any kind. I'm just his daughter, and I miss his words, his new thoughts, his old puns, all of it.
Part of my present and my past is missing with his memory, like a story he wrote for me in 8th grade. Dad wrote about my very awkward adolescence on an old computer. It was in a word program that no longer exist. So when my modern machine translates it, it becomes gibberish. The story is there, the information is there, it just can't be accessed. I love that story and will have to share it in my own words with my children; but I'd rather have them hold the pages with his words.
Alzheimer's is exactly like that.
I still can't quite laugh, my brain starts to tease about it and I wince. But I know, it is only his brain that is decaying, not his soul and recalling that, fixing on that, it does not ache as much.
My dad has Alzheimer's.
We don't talk about it much if for no reason other than, it hurts.
He is still Dad. He will always be Dad; but the shell of him is being slowly stripped away. Word loss creep first led to fewer letters. I've saved them all. When he visits, we get to eat together, to share the chaos that is my life and laugh a bit, sometimes it overwhelms him --which is reasonable; they overwhelm me sometimes too.
Alzheimer's is brutal and it's ongoing and it makes my heart howl sometimes when I know he's fishing for the next word, the next thought and they all get away. When my grandmother had it, I remember I did what I could to joke it away whenever possible, and I could usually make her laugh. "You always get to go new places. You always meet new people. You can claim you met anyone you want to and impress because we'll never be certain and neither will you." We had a good laugh about that as I helped her get her "doll face" on, she loved for me to draw her eyebrows.
Even late into the disease, Coco and I could still laugh a bit at this hard thing; one time she came into the dining room saying "This cereal tastes terrible." I looked at the silver tray she'd filled with granola and salsa. "Yes, I bet it did." I deadpanned. She smiled at me, she knew it was a bit of a rub. The ability to joke at it took some of the razor edge off, but this time, I can't laugh.
It's too close, too near, too sharp and too soon. Even though it's been ongoing, it still feels like a hard slap whenever we get to a new barrier of "we can't." and that's made harder by being only able to walk in spirit with my folks on this road to the cross because we live so far away.
Dad's still here and sometimes, he's really still here. He can sing with his son if his son coaxes him along and he loves his grandchildren fiercely. He knows the mass and he tries to read things. Sometimes he can.
He still laughs at movies and enjoys company and wants to participate and Mom fiercely takes every opportunity to bring him to those places and people he loves as often as possible.
So today, I am grateful I wrote that piece back in 2007 so I could have a mental snapshot of some of the wonderful things my Dad is; because Alzheimer's can make everyone else forget what was wonderful and magnificent and beautiful about a person over time, as they are less able to be present and witness to others. It is then that those that love the person who has Alzheimer's must do the remembering.
Christ understood how we remember, by analogy, by familiarity, by meals, by ritual, by words. I at the very least, am not a linear thinker and as such, can tell you the lyrics of a song but not which year the song came out. It gives the impression of someone who jumps from thought to thought, because in reality, that is how my brain operates, in lots of jumps and arcs, very little of my thought process is a grid.
I miss the hooks to old jokes and puns and memories that Dad by citing six thousand books (all of which he had read and I should read by the way) in a single conversation would prompt. I have to prompt them myself to recall his teaching me how to tie knots for a boat, to play poker and make a pina colada. He also cultivated in me a love of Catholic writers that continues to deepen to this day but that seed took a long time to germinate. When we drove across country in a car where only one side door opened when I finished graduate school, he had me read City of God aloud to keep us from growing bored on the road. I told him that sometimes the tone felt like Saint Augustine would walk through town, see something that ticked him off and go back to his room to write it up as an op-ed. He laughed. He'd send me books and articles hoping one day I'd be caught on fire by the stuff. It took, but it took the better part of the past 20 years and now, it is my bed time reading and I wish I wish I wish I could really share it with him.
I can remember him chopping ingredients for gumbo and thus the gumbo recipe. I can remember him strumming the guitar and singing, I've taught some of those songs to my children. They don't always get why I love the song "My old man's a sailor..." but that's okay, hearing their voices evokes his voice; and I get a lump in my throat at church when I hear him sing; it would make me stop singing to listen, but then he'd give me a glare as if to say, "Why aren't You singing?" because that's what we're supposed to be doing at that point.
When a person has Alzheimer's, the first thing to go, are words. They can't remember the word they wanted, the memory evoked won't come into focus, the present goes out of focus and everything is as it isn't. The world becomes a confusing tide of memory, present and unexplained gaps and holes where people and books and ideas and jokes and dreams and pains and loves should be. I don't pretend to be an expert on treatment or care or the long term process or an authority on this of any kind. I'm just his daughter, and I miss his words, his new thoughts, his old puns, all of it.
Part of my present and my past is missing with his memory, like a story he wrote for me in 8th grade. Dad wrote about my very awkward adolescence on an old computer. It was in a word program that no longer exist. So when my modern machine translates it, it becomes gibberish. The story is there, the information is there, it just can't be accessed. I love that story and will have to share it in my own words with my children; but I'd rather have them hold the pages with his words.
Alzheimer's is exactly like that.
I still can't quite laugh, my brain starts to tease about it and I wince. But I know, it is only his brain that is decaying, not his soul and recalling that, fixing on that, it does not ache as much.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Father's Day
Today is Father's Day. My Father continues to live out his vocation with each of his children. Dad still jokes on the phone. He still listens to our troubles. He still occasionally for no reason, sends a note and usually a few bills or a check with the closing, "Love and prayers, Daddy." He still offers me books I have no capacity to comprehend but which I keep hoping one day to understand and he still prays for each and every one of us daily.
Fathers get a bad rap these days as being unnecessary by modern thinkers. But I'm betting those modern thinkers ache in their hearts to have those moments Dads, real dads are famous for: grilling food in the winter, organizing football games even when none of the kids are in the mood and marshalling everyone outside for what turns into a weekly event and quiet points with walks in the woods or fishing. Fathers are those guys that teach their children knock knock jokes and then spend the next twenty minutes listening to their offspring butcher the delivery, invent new punch lines and still, they really laugh.
I can't imagine trying to fill the space my husband would leave behind if he weren't present in my children's lives. He stays up past 12 playing games with the three that love cards. He signs our middle daughter up for softball and goes to every weekend game just for her. He makes the brothers and sisters bring their instruments to basketball games and play during time outs and drives us to civil war battle fields and gives the historical accounts with fuller detail than the museum. Listening to their father sing at mass is one of my favorite moments once a week. It models for every one of them, how much they should participate and lo, the boys who were muttering along are now singing.
When things are squabbly, he lays down the law with lines like, "Peace through work." and the subsequent assignment of cleaning out the garage, trimming the hedges and pulling weeds or folding clothes. He invented the wolf council --where the kids howl and assemble and allowances are given and family announcements are made and the laundry system which would work if anyone followed it. And he prays for each of his children and for me every day. It takes a decade to get to us all.
So happy Father's day to my love, to the father of all my children and to my Father, who helped shape the person I became and model the type of man I should seek and to my Father-in-law, who shaped the man I fell in love with, with his love of history, dedication to his family and willingness to play summers full of whiffle ball and cards with his sons. I am blessed by all of you. Love, Sherry
Fathers get a bad rap these days as being unnecessary by modern thinkers. But I'm betting those modern thinkers ache in their hearts to have those moments Dads, real dads are famous for: grilling food in the winter, organizing football games even when none of the kids are in the mood and marshalling everyone outside for what turns into a weekly event and quiet points with walks in the woods or fishing. Fathers are those guys that teach their children knock knock jokes and then spend the next twenty minutes listening to their offspring butcher the delivery, invent new punch lines and still, they really laugh.
I can't imagine trying to fill the space my husband would leave behind if he weren't present in my children's lives. He stays up past 12 playing games with the three that love cards. He signs our middle daughter up for softball and goes to every weekend game just for her. He makes the brothers and sisters bring their instruments to basketball games and play during time outs and drives us to civil war battle fields and gives the historical accounts with fuller detail than the museum. Listening to their father sing at mass is one of my favorite moments once a week. It models for every one of them, how much they should participate and lo, the boys who were muttering along are now singing.
When things are squabbly, he lays down the law with lines like, "Peace through work." and the subsequent assignment of cleaning out the garage, trimming the hedges and pulling weeds or folding clothes. He invented the wolf council --where the kids howl and assemble and allowances are given and family announcements are made and the laundry system which would work if anyone followed it. And he prays for each of his children and for me every day. It takes a decade to get to us all.
So happy Father's day to my love, to the father of all my children and to my Father, who helped shape the person I became and model the type of man I should seek and to my Father-in-law, who shaped the man I fell in love with, with his love of history, dedication to his family and willingness to play summers full of whiffle ball and cards with his sons. I am blessed by all of you. Love, Sherry
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Father's Day
My oldest son is sixteen and likes to keep on top of current events.
So when he told me that the Federal Government, in the interest of public health has deemed that all fast food commercials now must refrain from showing people actually consuming food and not mention the word "eat" as part of their advertisement, I asked why?
He told me "This parallels the restrictions currently in place regarding alcohol and cigarettes, where beers can be shown being poured, being admired, being discussed, being held and being passed around but not actually being sipped, and cigarettes which can only be shown, not smoked." He talked about how this was part of an overall campaign to "slim down America." and thus hopefully reduce long term health costs for all.
I considered the recent commercials I'd seen, where waitresses brought food and people were spooning it but not eating, the fast food where people were preparing to dig in at dinner, and the kids favorite place, which showed someone...hey wait a minute, I saw him take a bite. I asked, "When did this take place, because I know I saw the guy take a bite of the Big Mac?"
He was grinning. I'd been suckered completely. So I did the only thing I could do in such a situation, I told him to go tell his dad.
So when he told me that the Federal Government, in the interest of public health has deemed that all fast food commercials now must refrain from showing people actually consuming food and not mention the word "eat" as part of their advertisement, I asked why?
He told me "This parallels the restrictions currently in place regarding alcohol and cigarettes, where beers can be shown being poured, being admired, being discussed, being held and being passed around but not actually being sipped, and cigarettes which can only be shown, not smoked." He talked about how this was part of an overall campaign to "slim down America." and thus hopefully reduce long term health costs for all.
I considered the recent commercials I'd seen, where waitresses brought food and people were spooning it but not eating, the fast food where people were preparing to dig in at dinner, and the kids favorite place, which showed someone...hey wait a minute, I saw him take a bite. I asked, "When did this take place, because I know I saw the guy take a bite of the Big Mac?"
He was grinning. I'd been suckered completely. So I did the only thing I could do in such a situation, I told him to go tell his dad.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Happy Father's Day
You'ld think being a writer, I'd be able to bang out 700 words in a heartbeat on Fatherhood, on the meaning of Dadness, and what having a husband who is a great Dad, and a father, whom I cherish, and a father in law who is loving, means. I also have a brother and brother in law, who awe me with their dedication to their children. I know we're all supposed to be that loving with our sons and daughters, it's still moving to see it in action. And I know countless families, where the fathers are so present, it's beautiful. They are the father's of my children's friends. And then there are the priests and teachers, who act in lieu of Mom and Dad when our kids are at school or mass, who present again, the image of what we are all supposed to be, thoughful, attentive and giving, loving and responsible. None of these people are perfect, but they through their example, provide glimpses of what God wants of all of us.
But it's hard.
To capture the essence of what these men mean and avoid sentimentality in the process, you're supposed to pin it down on specifics in writing. For example, instead of, he ate a poor lunch; He ate cold tomato soup from a can with buttered burnt toast.
So here goes: To my father, thanks for always loving us, even when we drove you nuts. Thanks for taking us sailing and fishing and buying us ice cream after we'd fought all the way to the store anyway. Thanks for reading me Watership Down and getting mad when I'd forged a signature on an F or gone cruising down Dowlen Road after you and Mom said I shouldn't. Thanks for all the long hugs when we greet at the airport for one of your visits or one of mine, and for the puns that pop up like mushrooms in our conversations. You're beautiful. You always make me smile.
To my husband, who pushes me to learn history and pay attention to politics, who keeps me from spending too much time in front of the computer writing by calling up to sing Surfer Girl and request that I water his plants and fix the fish filter, or brings home an unexpected book or game and helps devise systems to make the workload of all these children less taxing, thank you. Watching you take our son out to the garden when he's having trouble with his temper is a beautiful thing. Listening to you teach your daughters about past presidents and being on the sideline as you cheer your daughter on in softball, these are gorgeous moments for me as your wife. You love your daughters and your sons beyond well, and that makes you all the more wonderful to me.
My father in law has shown up quietly with great generosity at various moments in our lives and I am grateful for all of his help and assistance, even if I'm sometimes more than a bit stubborn in the moment. I can see how my husband became the man he is, by how his father acts and speaks, and I love his sense of humor.
So to all men out there who are fathers, who are in the trenches fathers, who tie shoes and coach teams, who sing for their children's first communion and bag groceries at the pantry program, who are present in their children's lives in a real brick and mortar kind of way, Thank You! Happy Father's Day!
May this year give you more presents than the perenial tie, painted rock, steaks in a box and gift certificate to home depot, may this year be the one where your children begin to recognize, How Great a Gift they have in You.
I'll return to humor on Tuesday, and discuss how my daugher who is two considers gargling to be a legitimate form of self expression in conversation. We're still working on finding out what it means.
But it's hard.
To capture the essence of what these men mean and avoid sentimentality in the process, you're supposed to pin it down on specifics in writing. For example, instead of, he ate a poor lunch; He ate cold tomato soup from a can with buttered burnt toast.
So here goes: To my father, thanks for always loving us, even when we drove you nuts. Thanks for taking us sailing and fishing and buying us ice cream after we'd fought all the way to the store anyway. Thanks for reading me Watership Down and getting mad when I'd forged a signature on an F or gone cruising down Dowlen Road after you and Mom said I shouldn't. Thanks for all the long hugs when we greet at the airport for one of your visits or one of mine, and for the puns that pop up like mushrooms in our conversations. You're beautiful. You always make me smile.
To my husband, who pushes me to learn history and pay attention to politics, who keeps me from spending too much time in front of the computer writing by calling up to sing Surfer Girl and request that I water his plants and fix the fish filter, or brings home an unexpected book or game and helps devise systems to make the workload of all these children less taxing, thank you. Watching you take our son out to the garden when he's having trouble with his temper is a beautiful thing. Listening to you teach your daughters about past presidents and being on the sideline as you cheer your daughter on in softball, these are gorgeous moments for me as your wife. You love your daughters and your sons beyond well, and that makes you all the more wonderful to me.
My father in law has shown up quietly with great generosity at various moments in our lives and I am grateful for all of his help and assistance, even if I'm sometimes more than a bit stubborn in the moment. I can see how my husband became the man he is, by how his father acts and speaks, and I love his sense of humor.
So to all men out there who are fathers, who are in the trenches fathers, who tie shoes and coach teams, who sing for their children's first communion and bag groceries at the pantry program, who are present in their children's lives in a real brick and mortar kind of way, Thank You! Happy Father's Day!
May this year give you more presents than the perenial tie, painted rock, steaks in a box and gift certificate to home depot, may this year be the one where your children begin to recognize, How Great a Gift they have in You.
I'll return to humor on Tuesday, and discuss how my daugher who is two considers gargling to be a legitimate form of self expression in conversation. We're still working on finding out what it means.
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