50-something Moms Blog

Sacred spaces

One of my husband's favorite movies was The Brother from Another Planet. My family and I were completely underwhelmed by it. I love the book A Severed Wasp, by Madeline L'Engle; friends have yawned, "It's okaaay," after reading it.  We've all had that happen; we've all recommended something near and dear to our hearts, only to be disappointed by the response of friends and family. So it was with no small amount of trepidation that I took my friend Tee to Montezuma Well, after having told her that I consider it one of my most holy places on earth.

The other mother in my house

I decided to make spaghetti for dinner last night, because I was tired and it's an easy meal.  I heaved the big pot full of water onto the stove. I started browning the (organic) ground beef in the frying pan. I chopped the onion and garlic. Oh dear... no tomatoes -- I'd forgotten that I'd given them to my mom to serve to a friend during cocktail hour.  Sigh. That's why I keep canned tomatoes on hand. What? No canned tomatoes either? A 6-ounce can of tomato paste wasn't going to cut it.

Water boiling, beef browning, onion sauteeing ...  aha! a can of Pxxxxxxxo tomato soup. Hearty!  Okay then. Desperate times call for desperate measures and Necessity IS the Mother of Invention.  I emptied the contents of the can into the frying pan and braced myself for the inevitable complaints at the dinner table.

Do a Mom a Favor

Mother's Day. The day we love to hate. It's a creation of the greeting card companies. (It's not, by the way.) It's hyped up by the floral industry. And "family" restaurants. And purveyors of fine chocolate and jewelry. And EVERY day should be Mother's Day. Bah humbug.

But if we're honest with ourselves, most of us moms have to admit that we LIKE it. We like having one day when we can kick back and legitimately expect the dad to do all the work. We like getting the carefully made scrawlings from school. We like a little extra attention. And there is nothing wrong with that.

Before my kids were born, I hated Mother's Day with a passion. I wasn't pregnant, and I wasn't going to be pregnant. The Hallmark holiday tore me apart. Then we adopted our darling boys and Mother's Day became a happy day, a day to celebrate not just myself, but the wonder of my family. 

After my husband died, Mother's Day once again became a kick in the gut -- and I wasn't expecting that. The day that was supposed to be all about ME wasn't. It became another day to confront the pain of losing the man who had chosen me to be the mother of his children. It became another day to look at my kids and realize how much they had lost. And, yes, it became another day to be mad at the universe that he wasn't here doing the things he was supposed to do for ME: Take me out to dinner, buy me flowers, take the kids shopping for little tokens and nudge them to make cards. For me.

It's only Facebook

A new group on Facebook makes my skin crawl every time I see that someone in my circle has joined it. It's based on a "joke" that circulated late last year:

DEAR LORD, THIS YEAR YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTOR, PATRICK SWAYZIE. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTRESS, FARAH FAWCETT. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE SINGER, MICHAEL JACKSON. I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW, MY FAVORITE PRESIDENT IS BARACK OBAMA. AMEN.

<rant on>

First, don't you know that all-caps on the Internet is the equivalent of screaming? Are you really screaming at God?

Second, if you're going to include famous people in your group name, you should at least spell their names correctly. It's F-a-r-r-a-h Fawcett. Two "r"s. It's Patrick S-w-a-y-z-e. No "i".

Answering the hardest questions

Every parent knows that children are nonstop question machines. We also know that we can't answer all the questions all the time, and the sanest among us don't even try.

Some of the questions make us laugh, others make us think. Some are asked by every child, others are utterly unique. Some are easily answered, others pose a challenge. Some challenging questions we can brush aside until a more convenient time, others we can even pretend not to hear. But we all know that there are some questions, some hard questions, that we simply cannot evade.

We rehearse our answers to those questions, trying to guess when that particular moment will come and imagining ourselves giving the best answer for that child at that age in that circumstance.  Where do babies come from? Did YOU ever try drugs? Did you and Dad wait until--?

The Real Stuff

Okay, fellow bloggers, here's a question for you:  How do you write about The Real Stuff?

Not the cute stuff. Not the interesting stuff. Not even the challenging stuff. But the Real Stuff. The tough stuff.  The stuff that eats at you and keeps you awake at night.

How do you write about The Real Stuff about the people who are in your lives right now?  Not the real stuff about your dad whom you haven't seen in 15 years. Not the real stuff about your hostile brother who finally made amends with you.  Not even the real stuff about your dead husband and your sometimes grief-driven world.  But the real stuff about the people you care most about in your lives, who are IN your lives?

Charity begins at home

"The world" has responded quickly and generously to the earthquake devastation in Haiti.  It feels good to be generous, to respond to human suffering, even if all we do is click a button to donate $20 to the American Red Cross. But what about the the suffering right here at home, in the United States? 

I'm not talking about the ongoing poverty in Appalachia or the relentless misery of our urban hell-holes -- you know, the kind of situation that often elicits "the poor will be with us always." I'm not talking about the 1.5 million children in this country who are homeless or the half million women who are victims of domestic violence every year -- you know, the kind of situation that stirs public debate on whether the government should spend any money to offer shelter or medical care. 

I'm talking about the current emergency in South Dakota. Yes, the emergency in South Dakota. You haven't heard about it? It's been headline news for two weeks -- oh, wait. It hasn't.

My thoughts are free

Like many people, I was both stunned and puzzled a few weeks ago when I heard that the infamous sign over the entrance to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz had been stolen. The sign, which said in German "Work makes you free," was a cruel lie told to the 1.5 million people who were slaughtered there.

Who would steal that sign? Who would want to have such a piece of Auschwitz? What motivated the theft? Anti-Semitism? Holocaust denial? Notoriety? Money? (But who would buy it?)  Now that the sign has been recovered -- in pieces, but recovered -- I'm sure we'll get some of those answers. 

The compromise that saved Christmas

I grew up in a household that started celebrating Christmas on December 1. The Firestone Christmas album with Julie Andrews went on the record player and alternated with the Harry Simeone Chorale's "Little Drummer Boy." The Christmas tree was fully decked out as soon as we could possibly bring one home. 

My late husband, on the other hand, grew up in a primarily Eastern European household in which the tree did not enter the house until Christmas Eve.  Our first December together was a clash of cultures, but we arrived at a compromise that pleased us both.

Photographs, memories, and field of vision

Being a mom, I take a lot of pictures of my boys: silly boys, handsome boys, costumed boys. Living in the desert Southwest, I take a lot of nature photos: spectacular sunsets, fascinating critters, pretty flowers. Loving to travel, I take a lot of tourist shots: churches, statues, quaint streets. I spent a day last week in my mother's house, taking a different kind of photograph: a catalog of jewelry, rugs, and artwork.  I didn't take those photos for insurance purposes (which is a good idea if you have valuable possessions), but to help my mother decide how she wants things to be divided upon her death.

For the last 20 years, every significant purchase that Mother has made has been accompanied by I want you to have this when I'm gone. Or You're going to get that one, so this one goes to your sister.  Or Your sister will be mad, but this is for you. Or You already have one so she should get this one. Since the inheritance allocation usually changes every time my mother talks about it, Jane and I have rolled our eyes and said, together and separately, Whatever you want (while thinking simply WhatEVer!).