Shards of Memories
November 13, 2008
Isn’t that an incredible title — shards of memories? I wish I could claim it as my own creation but it comes by way of friend Steve who was responding to a recent email from me. I wrote about spending time with my cousins this week in Virginia as we all gathered for the funeral of my Aunt Hazel. She died last week at 79 years old. My mother is the last survivor of that generation.
My cousins and I sat around the dining table on Monday night and shared our collective memories of life in our family. It was truly a collection of the good and bad, the happy and sad, the ups and downs of 3 generations of an amazing American family.
We talked about my great-grandmother Dom who died when I was a toddler. She was the proud Pennsylvania Dutch, Scotch-Irish matriarch of our family who didn’t stand for anyone bad-mouthing her bi-racial family. I learned that she wore a Persian lamb jacket with a unique pin that my cousin Dottie still has. Funny, I have a faux Persian lamb jacket that little old ladies love because it reminds them of the ones they wore so many years ago — like Dom.
We also talked about my Bermudian grandfather Fred and the lovely hazel-eyed grandmother Hazel I never knew because she died of breast cancer before I was born. And we reminisced about Great Aunt Clara, the character in our family. She drove a big black car well into her 80’s and took no nonsense from anyone — except her 5 husbands.
I’ve often thought of how to spin our family history in a way that allows me to wrap it up neatly at the end with a big red bow. But this week, I realized, as Steve so wisely put it, that our family memories are shards from the past like broken mirror. Interestingly, as my cousins and I shared our memories I could almost see these jagged pieces being reassembled like a broken mirror — a mirror that reflected back the person I’ve become because of our family history.
Shards of memories.
What are yours?
What A Midlife Crisis Feels Like
November 11, 2008
In the next hour I will be at my aunt’s funeral. Aunt Hazel died last Friday at 79. And to be honest, I can’t imagine the world without her. My earliest memories of her are of a loving woman who always said what she meant and meant what she said. “No nonsense” was her mantra. Good cooking and a great sense of humor were her forte. She was part of the fabric of my life.
I talk a lot here about midlife and transformation and how this is all a bridge to the better half of life. Most of the time that’s really what I believe. But today, life is feeling more like a midlife crisis. Here’s how it’s hitting me right now:
- My aunt has died.
- She was my mother’s younger sister–my 10 years–and my mother is still living.
- My mother has dementia and although we’ve told her about her sister’s death, it’s hard to know how she’s taking this sad news.
- That makes me sad.
- I’m here in Virginia surrounded by cousins–Aunt Hazel and Mom are the last elders on this side of the family. My mother and immediate family can’t be here so it’s just me from the Michigan contingency.
- All the young cousins I held as babies are now grown and having families of their own.
- My older cousin who’s 75 feels like a peer and my cousin who’s just a few years old is about to turn 60.
- Yes I pretend sometimes that I’m only as young as I think but 60 is around the corner for me too.
Well enough from me now. I’ve got to leave for the funeral. You’ve got a sense of what a midlife crisis feels like to me today.
What about you?
Lipstick Was My Favorite Halloween Costume
October 31, 2008
I know it sounds weird but lipstick was my favorite Halloween costume. I didn’t care what I dressed up as that day as long as lipstick was involved. Remember, I grew up during the 50’s when the standard, at least what I saw on my friends’ mothers and women in the movies was really, really, really RED lipstick. And in those days, little girls didn’t get to wear make-up under any circumstances, except of course — on Halloween.
Here are some of the costumes I had in my youth:
- Annie Oakley — with lipstick
- A bumble bee with sequins — and lipstick
- A princess — with lipstick
- A Wizard of Oz flying monkey — with lipstick
- A bunny rabbit recycled from the flying monkey costume — with lipstick
- A gypsy (I hate to think of the many years I dressed up as a negative ethnic stereotype) — with lipstick and
- Morticia from The Addams Family — with lipstick
- A lot of others I can’t even remember — with lipstick.
The goal was always to try to sneak past my mother’s vigilant eye and go to bed with the lipstick still on. That way, I figured, I could sneak off to school the next day with a whole new aura of sophistication emanating from my faded, smeared but still red lipstick from the night before. It never happened.
As soon as we hit the house after trick-or-treating, Mom had the big jar of cold cream open and ready. If memory serves, the brand of that vile goop she used was called “Albolene” and when Mom was done smearing it all over my face, there was no trace of lipstick to be found — always one of the low points of my childhood.
The residual of those memories of past Halloween lingers on in my long-time practice of wearing lipstick almost always. These days my lipstick may not be red but I never leave home without it.
So what will I be this Halloween. I’m showing up as “aunt” to Peanut, my four-year old niece who, I hear through the grapevine, will be dressed as a “diva pumpkin fairy” with wings, a faux fur jacket, faux fur boots with silver trim and many layers underneath to keep her warm. Apparently Peanut had final decision-making authority over her costume. But when she comes over to trick-or-treat, we’ll add the final touch to both of our costumes — lipstick. After all, it’s a family tradition!
What was your favorite Halloween get-up?
In Memory of Dad — Notes of Hope and Change
October 23, 2008
This week marks the 6th anniversary of my father’s death. Dad was a true Renaissance man — a dedicated physician, an accomplished artist, mentor to many and hero to me. He was the grandson of a slave and the slaveowner’s son and son of a domestic servant and a sharecropper turned factory worker. Despite his humble beginnings, Dad excelled in school because back then, that was the only way a young “colored” guy could remotely get ahead.
Dad injured his leg as a child and had to spend a year in a convalescent home. Despite this, he graduated near the top of his class from undergrad. Although he was positioned to go to medical school, back then they only took 2 Blacks in a class. So he waited for a spot for a year, earning his Master’s along the way.
In his senior year of med school, Dad’s leg was re-injured in the 1943 race riots in Detroit. Faced with another year in a convalescent home, he said “the hell with it” and let them amputate his leg at the knee. Despite THIS, he graduated first in his class — a fact he never knew until he retired 54 years later. The only thing we can figure is that it just wasn’t seemly to have a young Black man as valedictorian so grades weren’t posted the year he graduated.
Dad went on to a wonderful practice based more on service than on monetary gain. And as he grew his practice, he and my mother nurtured and grew 3 children — I was the oldest. Lest you think Dad was an egghead, that was just the tip of the iceberg of the man he was. He had a smile that was infectious, a million freckles, a sense of humor that had us laughing to the point of tears on many occasions. And so many people loved him for the caring and supportive way he showed up in the world — always.
As I grew older, Dad became my trusted advisor, my sounding board for what was supposed to be right in life. He was an amazing man who lived to be 83 years old. If he were here today and I were to tell him that a young Black man — another Renaissance man — was running for president of the United States, he would not be surprised. He always believed in the possibility that this country could rise above the heavy burden left by our history of racism. Because despite all, Dad was a man who believed in a world made better by hope and change.
I know he would have loved and been uplifted by the incredible music that has come out of this presidential campaign. So in search of a positive note this week (instead of too many tears), I found and posted here some of the music videos showcasing the talent and positive energy Dad would have admired and enjoyed. I hope you enjoy it too.
I love you Dad.
Manifesting Peanut — A Midlife Adoption Tale
October 17, 2008
Once upon a time, there was a woman who wanted to be a mother more than anything. But she never found the right man and had no luck with the scientific alternatives. Finally, she decided to adopt despite the overwhelming odds of being single, a minority, having limited resources and family who tried to talk her out of taking this step at 48 years old. We call this woman “Meno Mom” and she is my younger sister.
Meno Mom is one of a growing number of women in midlife who have 17 minutes left on their biological clock but aren’t willing to miss out on the experience of motherhood. Getting pregnant versus adoption is one of the initial hurdles. Liz over at Inventing My Life , who’s doing a special series on her midlife adoption journey at Midlifebloggers realized:
There are no guarantees in life about anything. Especially given my age, there were all sorts of risks involved with trying to get pregnant. I started to think it was a miracle that any healthy and intelligent babies are born at all! Not to mention the fact that my “pretty good genes” would only be half of the genetic material. I began to realize that ending up with a child who didn’t get a perfect score on the SATs was not the worst thing that could happen. And given a choice between an uncertain outcome from a bunch of icky medical procedures and a slightly less uncertain outcome from a long and expensive but not physically icky process, I chose adoption.
Like Meno Mom and Liz, would-be midlife mommies are looking at motherhood from a different perspective than in their younger years when adoption probably wouldn’t have been a consideration. Now they want the quickest and shortest path to their goal.
As she did adoption prep, Meno Mom also handled a significant share of the care-giving for our mother who has dementia. We had a caregiver during the day, but evening duty was done by my sister who lived the closest. I don’t think either one of us realized that Meno Mom was in dress rehearsal for her new role as a member of the sandwich generation. Sandra who writes on older parent adoption issues at Adoption Blogs describes the “sandwichers”:
Older adoptive parents; you know the ones — little kids on one side, aging parents on the other, you in the middle trying to see to it that both are cared for properly, have all the attention they need, their medical issues attended to, their futures as bright and healthy as possible.
Although Meno Mom handled the ups and downs of the adoption process well, she did hit a roadblock. Because she was adopting domestically where the birth mother picks the new parent, the agency asked Meno Mom to create a scrapbook with photos and stories about her and our family.
Meno Mom froze. Even though she’s a gifted artist, this ”pick-me, pick-me” step made her feel like she was in some kind of beauty contest she couldn’t win. Her confidence sank and her dream started to unravel. Liz over at Inventing My Life talks about this uncomfortable phase of the adoption process as well as anyone:
Here are the many ways that I have been thinking that other people are better than me, especially in terms of being ready to adopt:
- Other people have more money than I do
- Other people have husbands
- Other people live in better houses than I do
- Other people live in better neighborhoods than I do
- Other people have more friends than I do
- Other people have better jobs than I do
- Other people are more politically active than I am
- Other people have cooler stuff on their blogs than I do
Up until now, I was pretty much a casual bystander as Meno Mom jumped the adoption hurdles. But when she became deflated and unsure as she compared herself to ”other people”, I stepped in with some advice that came to me out of the clear blue:
You have to put it out into the Universe that your baby is waiting for you. The only thing standing in the way is the scrapbook. So change your thoughts, manifest your daughter and let’s get this book done!
Now I didn’t know anything then about the law of attraction or ”manifesting” your dreams. But intuitively I did know that my niece was out there waiting. So stepping out on faith, my sister and I visited scrapbook stores over the next three weeks and sorted through old family photos. We even bought gifts for the baby — Meno Mom bought little shoes and I bought a pink onesie with some saying about cute aunties.
Finally Meno Mom finished the scrapbook. It was an amazing creation by an amazing woman. The next morning, she put the book in the mail. What happened next is still hard for me to believe.
Later than afternoon her cell phone rang. When she saw the adoption agency number, she knew they were calling about the scrapbook. She stepped out of a meeting to whisper that the book was on the way and ask if she could call them back. It was then that the voice on the other end of the line said:
No — we have your daughter!
Only that morning a young woman the agency had never met walked in, gave her 4-week old daughter up for adoption and selected Meno Mom as the adoptive parent. Of course, all this without the help of the scrapbook because it was in the mail! Five days later, Meno Mom and my niece, the “Peanut”, were a family.
I suppose there are any number of explanations for what happened that day. But the one that resonates with me is that it was the law of attraction in action that allowed a midlife woman to turn her dreams of motherhood into reality.
What do you think?
-
Karen - Midlife Coach
