Messages...

What a prompt!

I am FULL of messages. I can't help myself. I was raised by a headstrong, dynamic Woman who raised me to be just like her, despite the fact, that in that process, conflict ensued!

My mother was ahead of her time. She loved to play baseball, but in the '50s, Little League didn't allow Girls, so she cut her hair, strapped down her budding breasts with ACE bandages, so she could pose as a boy, and played anyway. She grew up in Phoenix, where pro-baseball teams went for spring training, and launched herself up and out of her seat to catch a foul ball hit by one of her "Heroes" (Willie Mays), breaking her collarbone in the process. We have the signed baseball and newspaper clipping to prove it. My Grandmother was not just embarrassed, but "horrified" by the photo, since Willie Mays was a "Negro." But my mother didn't care. Willie Mays was her Hero, and she didn't give a damn what her mother thought of that (or maybe she did, and that's exactly why she chose him to be one of her Heroes...)

My Mother was brilliant, vibrant, and outspoken during a time when that was not "acceptable" or "ladylike." My grandfather was the eldest of four boys who wound up being the father of three girls. My mother was the Son He Always Wanted, yet he could not look past her gender to see that. She spent not only her childhood and adolescence trying to prove herself to him, but also her entire adult life. All she ever wanted was his approval, and she never, EVER got it.

But, the effort she put into that thankless goal, made her into this amazing mother--not the kind of mother that most people get. Instead, she was this force for her two daughters--filled with Words of Wisdom and MESSAGES. When I was 7 years old, MY mother was reading the Once and Future King to my sister and me as a bedtime story. We were well-versed in Arthurian Legend, Greek and Roman Mythology, and plenty of other "Classic Literature." She was an avid reader (her "escape" from the mundane, repetitious, and isolating experience that Housewivery proved to be for her), and she launched a love of reading in my sister and me, introducing us to the genres that she knew would capture our individual interests and personalities.

As we got older, we recognized that "time around the dinner table," was a time for MESSAGES. That was the time when my mother "learned us."

Other people have "Momisms" that, while they can be "funny internet fodder" are actually, kind of stupid. Things like, "I brought you into this world, and I can take you OUT!" or "Don't make me come BACK there!"

NOT SO in my House. Idle threats involving physical violence were not her style. Instead, my Mother had REAL things to say, like: "Don't ever rely on a Man to support you," and "There is NO form of Birth Control that is 100% effective," and "You can't legislate morality." (I do the same with my kids today, and we all jokingly refer to this discipline technique as "Death By Lecture.")

Her MESSAGES involved application of logic and critical thinking, questioning authority, sticking up for yourself, personal accountability, accepting challenges, and striving for bigger and better goals.

My sister and I were her proudest achievements. But we didn't get where we are today without the sting and bite of her criticisms. She prodded us, pushed us, created us to be what she so very much wanted to be, but never really got the opportunity to be. She pushed us so hard, and sometimes it HURT. And it saddens me so much that she isn't here to see that I finally AM who she wanted me to be--a Woman at the pinnacle of her career, influencing policy and guiding decisions of Executives at the highest level of my Agency! And my sister, who is sacrificing HER career because she knows all too well, just how important it is for her son to have a mother who can "be there" at bedtime every night to read books and take him to the park on the weekends. SHE made US. We would not be the mothers/women that we are without her influence.

And, so, I find myself "channeling" her whenever I talk to my children. My Parenting Style is a little bit different, but I still funnel similar MESSAGES to them, and I can only hope that they will still "sink in" on some level, so they will become the kind of people their Grandmother would be proud of.

Pilgrimage

My Mom died in March 2008. She was 64 years old. She died from "complications" of a very complex surgery she (we) chose to elect in an effort to prolong her life (there was a "troublesome" growth on her pancreas--not cancerous now, but likely to become cancerous later). My Mother was terrified of Pancreatic Cancer--she did not want to die a slow and painful death. The surgery was supposed to avoid that outcome--extend her life. Instead it killed her, and we were left behind stunned and in shock and completely unprepared. None of us had truly anticipated that outcome. We refused to consider the risks of surgery because we were all so focused on ridding her pancreas of that "troublesome" growth, we neglected to assess the other potential outcomes.

When I was still a small child, maybe 4 or 5 years old, my Mom reached over to answer the phone one day, and wrenched her back so badly that she slipped a disc. Living in a small town with sub-standard medical facilities, that slipped disc went undiagnosed for TEN YEARS. She was pretty much given prescriptions for Valium and told to "rest." I honestly have no memory of my mother being anything other than a Chronic Pain Sufferer. By the time her back problems were finally taken seriously by doctors, the slipped disc was 80% extended out of her spinal column, and she had been walking around like that, taking care of 2 active children, for TEN YEARS, causing permanent and chronic nerve damage. She had back surgery when I was in High School, but by then the cortisone shots and other "experimental" treatments for back pain had invited other complications, including a "frozen shoulder," loss of bone density and unstable vertebrae in her neck that also had to be fused surgically. And then, just when you thought things couldn't possibly get any worse, she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis--a particularly severe case because medical ailments never seemed to strike her with anything but unusual complications.

Despite those challenges (or perhaps because of them), she was the Lioness in our household. She was never "just a Housewife" or "just a Mom." She was so much more than that. She was passionate and spirited and bold and courageous and gifted. She was the Heart and Soul and Voice of our Family.

But, basically, I grew up with a mother in a constant state of suffering. All things considered, she suffered well because she was stubborn and determined and incredibly, incredibly intelligent, talented, and devoted to her family. We were everything to her, and not in an icky-sweet co-dependent kind of way. She was fierce and strong and bold. She suffered in silence, stubbornly fighting doctors and pain. She refused to give in. She pushed us; inspired us; drove us; lectured us. She was both our harshest critic, and our staunchest supporter. She was NOT the "TV Sit-Com Mom." She was not a cheerful "Brady Bunch" Mom. There were dark days where harsh words were exchanged--words that were burned into my memory, and then buried deep. There were days when I "just knew" I needed to "be especially good." There was one Christmas (but only one Christmas) before she FINALLY got her back surgery--when I had to decorate the tree all by myself (and that's a BIG DEAL because my Mom was HUGE on the whole Christmas thing). There were times when I was stunned and shocked by her support of Dr. Jack Kevorkian and abortion. But, she was also much more intimately acquainted with true suffering than I was...

When we cleaned out her closet and bathroom cabinets after her death, we found numerous prescription bottles, mostly full, of powerful painkillers--valium, vicodin, demarol, oxy contin--prescriptions she tried NOT to take. They made her mind "fuzzy," and that was just something she could not tolerate. For all of her talk about "Quality of Life" and the "Right to Choose," she had enough prescription pills to overdose a football team at her disposal.

She wanted to live.

When she was in the hospital, she suffered a seizure, and they had to do an emergency tracheotomy, leaving her hooked up to a respirator. She couldn't talk, and that was a torturous complication for her. Pain, or no pain, communication was her greatest strength. We tried giving her a notepad and pen to write things down, but the pain medication affected her fine motor skills, so we couldn't read her handwriting. I brought a whiteboard from my daughter's room, which, ironically, was a Christmas present to her from her Grandma, and some Whiteboard markers. She could write messages to us on the Whiteboard more easily.

The last message she wrote--to my Dad, who was with her, as she struggled to breathe because her lungs were filling with fluid, and her internal organs were beginning to hemorrhage, and she knew recovery was unlikely: "I would do it for you..."

She was begging him to "Pull the Plug"--end her suffering. (Which, of course he could not and would not do...)

She left behind not only us (husband, daughters, grandchildren), but also a house full of unfinished projects and unfulfilled plans.

Five unfinished quilts sat in her sewing room. Three of them only needed to have the binding sewn on. I finished those in time for her Memorial Service, so we could display those quilts during the service. Her best friend--despite being very ill and fighting her own battle against ovarian cancer--finished a quilt for my nephew that was similar to the one she made for my son, her first grandchild. She appliqued letters cut out of fabric onto the back of the quilt that spelled out, "To Nicholas with Love from Nana." I'm still working on the fifth quilt--a quilt all in white, with an intricate, hand-quilted "Tree of Life" design, also for my nephew because she made one for my first baby just like it.

I received a message recently on my Facebook account from a woman I am related to only by marriage--her husband's mother is my grandmother's aunt. I came to know her through genealogy research--a hobby that my mother introduced me to. There is an entire shelf in the "office" of my parent's house that holds books on genealogy. One of her wishes was to travel to Pennsylvania and Ohio and seek out the locations of the old "Family Homesteads" and cemeteries. She talked about this often, but knew it was impossible. Her medical conditions made travel over long distances impossible.

We had my Mother cremated, and my father, my sister, and I all have urns with her ashes. I carried my little urn in my purse when I traveled last year. I went to Washington, D.C. and Springfield, IL. I scattered her ashes near the Lincoln Memorial and Lincoln's home in Springfield (he was her favorite President). I also journeyed to Seattle, WA--where my sister and I were born. My father, my sister, and I all agreed that the time where Mom was probably the happiest was when she lived in Seattle--where she was a young wife with beautiful babies and her whole life ahead of her. Healthy, strong, and pain-free. Some of her ashes were scattered along Alkai Beach and within Seattle's Arboretum.

But I also realize that wherever I get to go--places like Washington, D.C., Yellowstone, Springfield, IL, etc.--those will all be places that my Mom would have loved to visit, too. If she were still here, she would have expected me to come home and "tell her all about it."

Instead, my Pilgrimage is to visit all those places my Mom would have wanted to go, and leave some of her ashes.

It would be so much better for me to come home and "tell her all about it," but instead, my pilgrimage is to GO, take her with me, and get to live out the life she would have wanted me to have.

Traditions

This is going to be a long post, since I have Christmas on my brain, and a To-Do List a mile long to make sure we cover all of our family traditions this year!

My mother's father's family was German, and she spent her childhood Christmases with her grandparents, aunts, and uncles in Ohio. But, my great grandmother was a notoriously bad cook, so there are no "family recipes" on German cooking to pass down (perhaps that is a good thing). My grandparents moved to Arizona when my mother and her sisters were young, so, away from extended family, new traditions had to begin. Unfortunately, my grandparents weren't the warmest of parents and did not have kid-oriented Christmases, so when my mother had a family of her own, she compensated by creating our own Christmas traditions, which evolved over the years, through trial and error.

One Christmas, during my Little House on the Prairie phase, we decorated our tree by stringing popcorn and cranberries, which were later placed on the trees outside for the birds to eat. Another year, we did a Victorian Christmas, complete with "crackers," mincemeat pies, and Plum Pudding with Hard Sauce.

Living in New Mexico with a mother who was fascinated by local culture, artwork, and history, we adopted local traditions, like having posole, tamales, enchiladas, and other New Mexican fare on Christmas Eve. We also put out farolitos on Christmas Eve (brown paper lunch sacks filled with a bit of sand to weight them down, and a votive candle). Entire neighborhoods in our community would line streets and driveways with these "little lanterns" to "light the way for the Christ Child." (People in New Mexico argue all the time over whether they are farolitos or luminarias--I say farolito because "farol" means lantern and "luminar" involves bonfires, so farolito, "little lantern," seems more fitting than "little bonfire.") We would all pitch in to get the farolitos up in our own yard, and then we would drive around on Christmas Eve enjoying the miles and miles of farolitos in other neighborhoods, Christmas music playing in the car stereo. We have been known to wear Santa Hats, Elf Ears, or Reindeer Antlers while doing this! One year we all wore Santa Hats and Groucho Glasses (including the nose and moustache, of course!)

We never put up the Christmas Tree until the week after Thanksgiving, and we always put lights out on the trees and bushes in the front yard. Santa presents always made their appearance unwrapped, or in a plain white gift box tied with red or green yarn. We still received "Santa Presents" into adulthood. We watched all of the Christmas specials on TV with at least one viewing of It's a Wonderful Life. We read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas from a beautifully-illustrated book before bed on Christmas Eve, when we were allowed to open just one present. Some years, we were able to persuade my parents to let us open ALL the presents on Christmas Eve, but this only occured if we would be hosting Christmas Dinner with our good friends the next day, which required lots of cooking and table-setting, so sometimes my parents would relent.

We always got out my mother's wedding china and silverware, which meant polishing the silver because it was silver-plated (one of the few chores I enthusiastically participated in each year because I loved her silverware and dishes). My mother passed down the wedding china to me a few years ago after replacing it with more contemporary Dansk dishes and a complete set of Christmas dishes. She knew how much I loved her china and was pleased to hand it down to make room for her current taste in dishes (her wedding china was really selected for her by my grandmother).

There were always craft projects and holiday ornament-making growing up. My mother often got these ideas out of magazines, and she kept us occupied all month long with these projects, which were often given away to friends and teachers as gifts. I still have several of them for my own tree--counted cross-stitch designs in frames, patchwork hearts, stuffed and trimmed with lace, Victorian Christmas scenes decoupaged onto wooden cut-outs).

My mother made homemade candy (taffy, prailines, caramels, peanut brittle, fudge) and cookies (shortbread, meringues, apricot-nut bars, and a half dozen others). The older we got, and the more accomplished my mother became, the "fancier" the cookie trays became. We packaged them up and delivered or mailed them to relatives and neighbors. Everything was always entirely homemade and while the recipes changed from year-to-year, they were always elegant and something we only made at Christmastime.

Christmas music was always playing in the house non-stop, and my mother had an enormous collection. My grandfather worked for Goodyear Aerospace and every year Goodyear gave their employees a holiday album, compiled by various popular singers. But my mother had all kinds of other albums as well--folk singers (Peter, Paul, and Mary's Christmas Album is still one of my favorites), handbells, music box collections, children's choirs, jazz, classical guitar, piano solos...the list went on and on. Her collection grew every year. I spent two Christmases in college working in a department store, listening to hour after hour of Christmas music while dealing with rude customers, so that experience kind of ruined Christmas music for me, so I don't listen to it much unless I'm decorating the tree or baking. There were also stacks and stacks of Christmas books--from childrens' stories to collections of Christmas traditions and celebrations around the world. Now I have a huge box of holiday books for my kids, as well as for myself. We get them out and flip through them all month long. I always read O. Henry's Gift of the Magi, and it still makes me cry, every year!

I still do most of these things with my own kids, but I have adapted them to fit into my reality which involves a full-time job and limited time to cook and bake and sew. We rarely do craft projects and homemade ornaments, for example. The only candy I make is Toffee, coated with chocolate and chopped pecans. Sometimes I'll do fudge and divinity. The only cookies I make are shortbread, gingerbread (to decorate), and biscochitos (a traditional New Mexican cookie--full of shortening, seasoned with anise, and sprinkled with plenty of cinnamon sugar). Sometimes I'll add macaroons or some fancy recipe I found in a magazine, but not often. Everybody I know seems to be on a diet anyway, and my kids aren't big cookie eaters (I know! They are so weird!), so I don't do nearly as much baking as I used to. I'd like to continue with the New Mexican Christmas Eve menu, but my kids aren't big fans of Mexican food (too spicy!), so I'll have to add quesadillas, and save the tamales and enchiladas for myself! Posole is a stew made with hominy, pork, chile, onions, and tomatoes--again not something my kids will eat, but it is so good with homemade tortillas, and I can always freeze the leftovers and have it on New Year's Day (for good luck)!

So much of our holiday traditions revolve around food. Now that I'm a "grown-up," I've developed my own specialties that I am known for, just like my Mom had hers. These are mine:

1. Homemade Egg Nog. The recipe I use has a cooked custard base (no raw eggs), and is absolutely "to die for." The kids drink it plain, the grown-ups add kahlua. My little nephew had his first taste of it last year, and he said, "Mmmmmm....more?" We called it "Christmas Milk" for him!

2. Cheese Ball. These are so easy, it's embarrassing, but people--including my kids--love them, so I give them as gifts to co-workers, and I always send at least one to my in-laws. My cheese ball combines cream cheese with sharp cheddar cheese, a couple cloves of garlic, chopped black olives, and a little evaporated milk. I shape them into balls and roll them in a mixture of finely chopped pecans and smoked paprika.

3. Santa Bread. This actually evolved from one of my Mother's ideas for Teacher Gifts one year. We bought frozen bread dough, and using instructions from a magazine, shaped the dough into Santa faces--we rolled out a large oval, then cut "fringe" all around, about an inch wide and two inches deep. Then, we twisted the strips and made them into "curls" that looked like hair and a beard. A few small pieces of dough were rolled into eyes, a nose, and a twisted moustache. The dough was brushed with egg white and water (for "shine") and baked to perfection. I do the bread dough from scratch now, using a dinner roll recipe that requires more sugar than most, eggs, milk, and butter for a rich, sweet dough that tastes great on Christmas morning with butter and jam. These used to go to family and friends, but sometimes the list includes co-workers and neighbors. I still make one for my in-laws every year and also for the kids' teachers. The teachers love it so much, that sometimes we have to make a few extra for the Teacher's Lounge, so their previous year teachers can have it again! I make anywhere from 10 to 18 Santa Breads each year--that's a lot of bread dough! But, people rave about it, and it costs next to nothing, except time, plus it's good for my ego. (Amazing how nutty people can be over something so simple as homemade bread!) The kids love it, too, and now they even help make it--they like making Santa's curls and eyeballs! They'll ask me, "when are we going to start making Santa Breads?" and people around us will ask, "What in the world is Santa Bread?" And then we have to tell them the story. It's taken on a life of it's own--it's practically legendary at the kids' elementary school! Some of my friends and co-workers will actually call me up and ask, timidly and hopefully, "Are we getting a Santa Bread this year?" Honestly, it's beginning to get out of control! I work full-time! I can only do so much! I have to start early in December and keep half of them in the freezer in order to get them all done by Christmas Eve. Fortunately, each recipe makes 2 Santa Breads, but still...! Ah, well, I love the attention, so I do it every year, without fail.

Divorce hasn't had too much of an impact on our holidays. I still have 2 weekends of the month to cram in holiday festivities with my kids. If I don't have them for the week of Christmas, we just wait and celebrate when they return. We lose the Christmas Eve ritual, but that isn't as important now that they are older--at least they always had it when they were younger. Not being a part of my ex's family has altered my traditions somewhat--he had a large family, so they were the people I made cookies and candy for, since my Mom had our side covered. I do miss being a part of my in-laws celebrations and baking for them.

I hope that when my kids are grown, they will look back and associate certain things with me, just as I do with my own Mom. Traditions are meant to be shared and repeated--they should bring people together, whether it's watching movies or driving around looking at Christmas lights. There should be elements of music, food, and story-telling.

My Dad is going to Arizona to spend Christmas with my sister this year, and I was thinking I could make up some of Mom's cookie and candy recipes to send along. I have most of her recipes, but I'm not sure I can do them justice, and I'm not sure any of us can enjoy them without a tremendous feeling of sadness and loss. I'll have to think on that for awhile.

I also have to figure out what to do about Christmas lights now that we are in a new house. This house has a very stark, barren front yard without trees or bushes, so that means my only option is to put lights up on my house, which will require a ladder, and multiple extension cords, not to mention actually FINDING my boxes of Christmas lights which are still buried in my garage, behind all of those boxes from my move that have yet to be unpacked.

Perhaps I'll just wait until Christmas Eve and do farolitos instead...

Grateful

As I was thinking about what to write for this post, I was reminded of my favorite Ann Lander's Column that ran sometime around Thanksgiving:


Things to Be Thankful For

Be thankful for the clothes that fit a little too snug, because it means you have enough to eat.

Be thankful for the mess you clean up after a party, because it means you have been surrounded by friends.

Be thankful for the taxes you pay, because it means you're employed.

Be thankful that your lawn needs mowing and your windows need fixing, because it means you have a home.

Be thankful for your heating bill, because it means you are warm.

Be thankful for the laundry, because it means you have clothes to wear.

Be thankful for the space you find at the far end of the parking lot, because it means you can walk.

Be thankful for the lady who sings off-key behind you in church, because it means you can hear.

Be thankful when people complain about the government, because it means we have freedom of speech.

Be thankful for the alarm that goes off in the early morning hours, because it means you're alive.



When I read this column, it sort of slaps me in the face because it reminds me that all of my complaints are petty and small compared to all of the things I have to be thankful for--especially during these times of "gloom and doom," with daily news reports about lay-offs and bank failures and veterans with traumatic brain injuries--all of which are far removed from my own situation.

I joke that I lead a very boring life, but the reality is that I lead a life that is free of hardships, and for that I am thankful. But, I also recognize that I got to live this sort of life not just through luck, but through the choices I made. The choices I made were largely based on certain values that had been instilled in me at a young age. I would not be where I am today, if it weren't for certain people, and I am most grateful for having them in my life.

I am grateful that my grandparents lived through the Depression and valued hard work, responsibility, and financial security through saving your money and living modestly.

I am grateful that my father, whose parents only had high school educations, was raised to value education and encouraged to go further than his own parents had, even if it meant struggling to pay for that college degree.

I am grateful that my parents had high expectations for their daughters and allowed us the independence to succeed or fail based on our own actions and decisions--there were no bailouts in our household. If we chose not to study for a test and failed, there would be no phone calls to the teacher to ask for a grade change. If we failed, it was our own fault. Consequences were always discussed in our household.

I am grateful that my fear of consequences kept me on the "straight and narrow." I did not place myself in risky situations, nor did I engage in behavior that could have negative results. Unlike most of my friends, I was always thinking about the "What Ifs." I still do.

I am grateful that my parents did not hand out compliments and praise for nothing. It made me very recognition-oriented because the only time I got the attention I craved was by achieving something significant, like straight A's or Leadership Awards or a full-tuition scholarship to college.

I am grateful that my mother lectured us in our teens--unabashedly discussing very adult topics like sex and drugs with an attitude that we were mature enough to handle it, even though, at the time, we were horribly embarrassed and uncomfortable with it. She certainly scared us, but that fear kept me a "good girl." She spoke to us and treated us like mature young adults--not like we were stupid teenagers, incapable of having anything intelligent to say. They say children will rise to your level of expectation, and she had very high expectations of us, and we certainly did not want to disappoint her.

I am grateful that my mother spoke to us about her own hopes and dreams--and her regrets. She wanted us to go further--attain all the things that she didn't, and so we did. Her honesty, while sometimes painful, taught us many valuable lessons.

I am grateful that I was the "Main Breadwinner" during my marriage because it kept me from quitting a job that sometimes I did not particularly like. I stuck it out for 10 years because I had to "pay the bills," but during that time, I established a reputation with my co-workers and managers as a hard-working employee, and I volunteered for other assignments--mainly to get out of doing the work I didn't like--which gave me more experiences, new skills, and greater "exposure." It laid the foundation for my career, and I was rewarded with a new job as an analyst that suited me perfectly. And, because I didn't change employers, my pay increased, and my benefits increased, and my retirement plan remained intact because I didn't have to start over somewhere else. Responsibility and patience pay off, and just because you don't like your job, that doesn't mean you should do shitty work. My job may have been shitty, but my work never was.

I am grateful that I have always had managers who cared about my development and encouraged me to take on different assignments. They recommended me for Teams and Special Projects, and allowed me to go on Details that altered the path of my career, even though it made their jobs a little tougher while I was away. I have never, ever had a "bad" boss.

I am grateful that I have two healthy children who are growing up to be interesting and funny people, and that I knew enough about parenting to know it was important to just "be myself" with them. They don't just see me as "Mom," but also as a human being who makes mistakes, laughs at inappropriate things, and isn't afraid to tell them the truth about things. They have seen me cry; they have heard me rant; they have been subjected to my lecturing. There are no surprises in this house--I may not be perfect, but at least I'm consistent because I'm not trying to be a phony.

I am grateful my Dad lives nearby and can still come to "rescue me" when a pipe bursts or my car won't start. (He also buys me tools. Whee!)

Most of all, I am grateful that whenever I am fumbling around, feeling like a helpless failure because I don't know how to do something, I hear my mother telling me, "Nonsense! Don't be ridiculous! You can do anything, you just need to figure it out."

She was right. It may take awhile, but I'll eventually figure it out.

Coffee

Years ago, when my kids were little, and I was sleep-deprived, I couldn't leave for work without two large travel mugs full of coffee. I had a 30-minute commute and would suck down the equivalent of about 4 mugs of coffee during my journey. I love the way coffee smells, but I have to drink it with milk (or, better yet, cream) and artificial sweetener. I refused to buy my coffee at coffee shops, particularly Starbuck's (which I consider to be an Evil Empire, forcing thousands of small, independent coffee shop owners out of business.) It seemed like an atrocious waste of money, especially when I could make it at home--I even had an Espresso machine, so I could make my own lattes.

I only drank coffee on weekdays. On the weekends, I rarely drank it. And I didn't drink it for the caffeine buzz because I honestly couldn't feel any effects from the caffeine. I could drink coffee at 11:30 at night, and be sound asleep by midnight. I think I probably drank coffee all the way up until my divorce. My ex drank coffee--tons of it. He had to have non-dairy creamer (not milk) and about 3 spoonfuls of sugar in his. After he moved out, I stopped drinking coffee. I think I made it for him, really, rather than for me--I just drank it because it was there. I suffered no withdrawal symptoms. I just got up one morning and didn't make coffee. Simple as that.

I've always been more of a tea-drinker, and I drink my tea the same way I drank my coffee--only with a little less milk and about half a package of artificial sweetener. I can also drink my tea "straight up" without milk or sweetener--something I could never do with coffee. I love everything about tea--I love tea cups and saucers and tea pots that come in all shapes and sizes. Admittedly, I most often drink my tea in a coffee mug, but I own plenty of tea cups and they are the first thing I look for in antique stores. I have this lovely dream of owning a Bed and Breakfast someday, with a fancy Tea Room for the locals. I will serve up the tea in my vast "collection" of tea cups and saucers, acquired from antique stores. I rarely drink tea on weekdays--I'm always in a rush on weekday mornings and tea is not something that can be rushed. Tea is for drinking when you can curl up on the couch or read the newspaper on your back patio. It is made for those times when you have peace and quiet. Tea does not belong in Travel Mugs or paper cups. It belongs on a table, in a proper cup.

It is no wonder that tea drinkers in the United States are discriminated against. Coffee is the beverage of America. It's bold and brash and arrogant. If you have a cup of coffee in your hand, everyone else can smell it. Taking a "coffee break" is a perfectly acceptable excuse to leave your desk. Tea? Not so much. If you order "hot tea" at a restaurant, they either bring you a tiny little pot of hot water or a single mug of hot water with a single tea bag. If you ask for more hot water, they expect you to re-use that same tea bag. Yeck! I hate weak tea! I use my tea bags once, and throw them away! Coffee drinkers, on the other hand, get unlimited refills, without having to ask. Tea drinkers have to flag down a waiter or waitress and request additional hot water and additional tea bags, and sometimes they CHARGE you for an additional tea bag! Why is that when coffee beans cost far more than tea? I know some tea drinkers who actually carry extra tea bags around in their purses for this very reason. Hotels will put tea bags in the little caddy next to the 4-cup coffee-maker, but you can't drink tea from a coffee-maker because it will always taste like coffee. And they put out exactly two tea bags--one regular and one decaf. Phffffft!

My mother was a tea-drinker. She drank tea all day long, probably anywhere from 6 to 10 cups a day, and then she always had iced tea with dinner. She was an Earl Grey fan, and while I like Earl Grey, I'm happiest with plain ol' English Breakfast. Sometimes I'll try the flavored teas, but I'm still most content with a basic, traditional, black tea.

My father attended a conference in Victoria, British Columbia about 15 years ago, and my mother and my sister accompanied him on his trip. I was unable to go--can't exactly remember why now because this was before I had children--probably a work conflict. They visited Butchart Gardens and had "High Tea" at the Empress Hotel. I was immensely jealous, and vow that someday before I die, I will spend a weekend in Victoria! It was during this trip that my mother discovered Murchie's Tea--that's what the Empress Hotel serves. She brought back boxes and boxes of Murchie's Tea, and gave me a box containing a sampler of the various blends, including the Empress Afternoon blend served at the Hotel, and the Golden Jubilee blend, created for Queen Elizabeth. While she would still buy tea at Trader Joe's or specialty shops, Murchie's became her regular supplier. Shipping and handling wasn't cheap, but to her it was worth every penny for good quality tea. She never drank Lipton's or Bigelow tea ever again.

She had placed a large order with Murchie's just before she went into the hospital. It arrived a few days after she died. I can only imagine how my Dad felt the moment he opened up the box that was delivered to his doorstep. At her Memorial Service, we put out a tray of tea bags in a multitude of blends, so everyone could enjoy a good cup of tea in her memory. She had an entire cabinet in her kitchen filled with various teas--all kinds of flavors, many of them gifts from friends and family because everyone who knew her, knew how much she liked her tea. My father, a coffee drinker, asked me if I wanted the Murchie's tea, and I jumped at the chance. Even though I didn't drink tea very often, it was something that I closely connected with my mother, so of course I wanted the tea. There are two boxes (with 75 tea bags per box) of Earl Grey, a box of English Afternoon, and a box of Golden Jubilee in one of my kitchen cabinets.

I drink much more tea now than I used to--because whenever I fix a cup of tea, I think of my mother. While I don't drink tea every day, I drink it almost every day, and, like my mom, sometimes I fix it in the middle of the day or after dinner, not just in the mornings.

I may never drink coffee ever again--it's my way of showing solidarity and preserving my mother's memory.

Sunday Scribblings - Photograph

I have always loved photographs. Even as a kid, I wanted to record every "special event" and every meaningful person or object in my life. I got my first Kodak camera (the kind that took 110 film) when I was in Elementary School. I took pictures of our dog, my best friend, the basketball backboard my father custom-made for my sister, my parents 1970 Chevrolet station wagon (which would become the first car I learned how to drive many years later), and the great clouds of smoke pouring into the sky as a forest fire burned off in the distance.

When I was in high school, I took pictures of friends and boyfriends, and I took pictures on all of the trips I got to take as a result of being in various extra-curricular activities. I was a "small town girl," so flying to Dallas for a competition was exciting, and I took pictures of the tall buildings in the Big City because they were the first ones I had ever seen up close. I also took a picture of a "Virgin Strawberry Daquiri" because, well, because it was there in front of me, and I wanted to remember that I had ordered it.

In college, I took pictures of new friends, and I also took pictures of places. I was away from home for the first time and found myself wanting pictures of the mesas and canyons of my Hometown--I had come to truly "appreciate" them now that they were part of my past instead of my present. I would go home for Spring Break and Fall Break and various holiday breaks and take pictures of the scenery. I also took a lot of pictures of old houses. My Hometown was mainly post-WWII vintage, but the city of my university had entire neighborhoods of Victorian houses and old churches with stained glass windows and copper shingles. These were things I loved because I had never seen them before, so I took pictures.

My parents always had photo albums in the house, and I kept my photos in albums, too, but my favorite albums were the "old ones" with pictures of my parents as children and distant relatives I had never met living in houses I had never visited. I loved delving into the photo albums that recorded our "baby years." When we would visit my grandparents, I would paw through my grandmother's photo albums, fascinated by the clothes and the cars and the activities. My Grandfather in his Navy uniform, home on Leave because his first child had been born while he was stationed overseas, piloting dirigibles seeking out German submarines lurking in the waters surrounding South America. My mother, wearing Shirley Temple Ringlets in a posed studio shot. My Great Great Aunts standing in front of a WWI-era car, decked out in fur coats and hats featuring a jaunty peacock or pheasant feather. My Great Grandfather, a 32nd Degree Mason, dressed for a parade. The "Baughman Family Estate" lost during the Great Depression that is now the "Firestone Estate" (yes, yes, I could have been an heiress...)

I think it was my Grandmother's Photo Albums that sparked my passion for photographs. Whenever we brought out Photo Albums, stories got told, and I loved the stories. Photographs capture history, style, physical features, a pretty dress, but they also create a "placeholder" for someone who will tell the story behind that photo. Why was it taken? Why did the person taking the picture want to remember that particular day? Whenever we take a picture, we are doing it to record a memory. We are saying to ourselves, "I want to capture THIS moment."

But pictures are nothing without a narrator. It saddens me when I read about people purchasing boxes of "old photographs" at the Garage Sale of a total stranger. To give up your photographs means that you don't know anything about them, and that's why you can choose to part with them. But, to me, that is heartbreaking because the photograph has so much more power when there is someone there to explain it's reason for existence.

I'm not alone in feeling this way. Look at the massive industry "Scrapbooking" has become. You can't just slap your photos into albums anymore--you have to decoratively display them on acid-free paper, and you must, must, MUST include a caption or a poem or some other notation that describes why that picture was taken--why it was important.

My mother died on March 14th, suddenly, from complications of a particularly high-risk surgery she had chosen to undergo in a valiant effort to "buy her more time." Sadly, the surgery only served to cut her life shorter instead of extending it. It has been a very rough month for my sister, my Dad, and me. We struggle with the decision (made collectively as a family) to opt for surgery. We struggle with not being at all prepared for the outcome. We struggle with the vastness and enormity of the tremendous hole that has suddenly been punched into all of our lives.

Since we were the people closest to her (and the people who grieve the most), we were also tasked with the responsibility of "arrangements." Oddly, this was a good thing. It kept us busy. We had things to do, arrangements to make. We had to pick out flowers, design a program for the Memorial Service, select and purchase an Urn for her remains, burn appropriate music onto a CD, write an obituary, plan and prepare food for visitors who would stop by the house after the service...

The list went on and on.

We were also assigned the task of gathering photographs to pin onto two large, fabric-covered bulletin boards that would be posted in the Chapel of the Funeral Home. So, out came the photo albums. My Dad spent an evening scanning photos of my Mom as a baby, a child, a young wife, a young mother, a grandmother. We were actually hard-pressed to come up with a comprehensive collection of her. My mother hated to have her picture taken. Our Baby Albums are filled with pictures of us with our Dad, but there are very few with Mom. She cleverly managed to avoid the camera lens. She coached our softball teams, yet the Team Photo in our albums contains only the faces of the girls--no coach. We were getting frustrated by this--saddened that our mother's "phobia" was now depriving us of something we desperately wanted to find. But, at least we had the Shirley Templesque photo, the high school Graduation Gown photo, the wedding photo, a few "Mom and babies" photos. Finding more recent photos was especially difficult. Her many health issues had caused her to gain significant amounts of weight in recent years, so now she REALLY hated having her picture taken. She would THROW AWAY photos that we sent to her if she was in them and didn't like how "she looked." Not to be thwarted, we scrounged through our own albums and skimmed through the "digital archives" on our computers.

And we found photos--oh yes, there were photos!

The one thing my Mother loved most about her life was being a Grandma. The only recent photos of my Mom always, ALWAYS involved her holding a Grandbaby or--even better--reading a book with a Grandchild. Those photos got taken and were not destroyed--not even by her. Those photos went up on those boards. We were proud of those boards. Through photographs, we captured every stage of her life and showed her engaged in the activities she enjoyed the most--all of her roles as friend, sister, wife, mother, and grandmother.

We somehow managed to survive the Memorial Service last weekend. We were all exhausted, but in a good way because it was "over" and because we got things done and did them in such a way that we think she would have "approved." We were also sad that suddenly we found ourselves with "nothing to do," and that's a bad place to be in when you are grieving.

I went back to work, my kids went back to school, and our lives fell back into their usual routines. But then I picked up my kids from school on Wednesday, and they each had our town's Parks and Recreation Summer Catalog in their backpacks. They both greeted me eagerly, saying, "Mom, Mom! There is a picture of Grandma in here with us!" They were jumping up and down with this weird, bittersweet excitement (because they were "famous" all of a sudden--this particular publication is intended to reach every household in a town with a population of 55,000). Sure enough, I flip through the booklet and find an image of my mother, with my kids, attending an "Art Show" at the Parks and Rec Art Camp my children attended last summer. My Mom was there because the Camp ended at 2:00 pm, and I didn't get home from work until 5:00 pm, so she showed up every day that week to pick up her grandkids because I couldn't be there.

It's not a good photograph. My Mother would have hated it. It wasn't "flattering." As someone who takes a lot of pictures and can be objective, I think it is a crappy photograph for a Parks and Rec publication (you can't see anyone's faces--it's basically a picture of my Mom, turned awkwardly, the back of my daughter's head, and my son with his mouth hanging open while they look at some kid's artwork that isn't particularly spectacular). But, even though it is a crappy photograph, it still spoke volumes to me--it magically-appeared somewhere I would have never expected it to appear, and my Mom's photograph is in that publication because she was doing what she always did--taking care of me and filling in where I could not, and she was smiling because that is exactly where she wanted to be at that moment when that photograph was taken.

I want to tell the 55,000 residents of my city the story behind that photograph.