three boys, one mother's day

Mother's Day, 2013

Now that the boys are no longer under parental direction when it comes to birthdays, Christmas, Father’s or Mother’s Day, it’s interesting to see how they approach these occasions.

As I’ve grown older, I notice the difference in myself when I have the time and presence of mind to get the perfect thoughtful little something for someone I care about, compared to the other end of the spectrum: That pressure of knowing a gift is expected, but perhaps I’m short on money, time, imagination, and so I find myself…stressed. Agitated that such things are expected. And what a tragedy to think of all the money spent on gifts that turn out not to be a good match for someone! Such thoughts can squeeze the love right out of giving.

So I hate that others might go through similar mental gymnastics in wanting to please me.

And yet.

I found myself thinking about Mother’s Day last Saturday, the day before. (I had sent my own mom flowers, and arranged to make a special breakfast with Shawn for his mom, both of which felt good.)

Would the boys do anything for me?

What would it mean if they didn’t? Would it mean they didn’t love or appreciate me? Would it mean that I hadn’t raised them to be thoughtful? Would it mean that I was so insecure and shallow that I couldn’t rise above some commercially-mandated holiday and feel the love around me plain as day?

A friend sent me a link to an interesting essay by Anne Lamott, entitled “Why I Hate Mother’s Day,” which also provided some perspective.

So I let go and consciously decided to let things unfold and enjoy a beautiful, sunny Mother’s Day.

At 10 a.m. the boys announced they would be making lunch for me for Mother’s Day. How sweet, I thought. And: this could be entertaining…

Then at 11:30 a.m. one of the boys informed me that they would be taking me out to lunch instead.

 At 12:30, with no sign of lunch in sight, the plans continued to evolve. They were now thinking they would make dinner for me.

Oldest Son invited me to take a walk with him at a nearby river in the afternoon to hunt for morel mushrooms. He convinced his brothers to handle the making of dinner. (It is possible that I was a tad concerned about how palatable said dinner might be.) At 5:45 we arrived home. No signs or smells of meal preparation.

“I decided we’d just buy her a salad from somewhere instead,” one of the brothers explained to Oldest Son.

“Great – then she still has to make the rest of us dinner, dipshit,” Oldest Son replied. “That defeats the whole point.”

After much confusion and indecision, we finally hopped on our bikes and rode downtown to Mackenzie River Pizza. The boys grumbled back and forth to each other about the changing plans, whose fault it was, who had money to pay, who didn’t, and on and on.

(For a moment I flashed upon a terrifying image of myself in a nursing home, these three in charge of making decisions on my behalf.)

I could hear their stress.

And the love behind it all.

whoa nelly

Some people take great photos with their smart phones. I'd be happy if I could just remember to keep my fingers away from the lens.

Middle Son is practicing to become a card-carrying driver at the end of this month.

For the past five months, I’ve been a Nervous Nelly riding shotgun with him. Mostly it’s his confidence that scares me. (Shawn assures me that he is becoming a good driver, despite my assistance.) I still remember the very first ride with Middle Son behind the wheel, a scene that has replayed itself in endless variations since:

Me: Ok now, would you like some pointers or something?

Him: No. I know how to do this.

Me: How do you know how to do this, have you driven before?

Him: No, Mom. But it’s not that hard.

Me: OK, but this isn’t a video game.

Him: I KNOW it’s not a video game. Why would you say that?

Me: Because you’re driving like you’re playing a video game. You need to slow down. This is a 25 MPH zone. And please leave a little more space between you and the next car.

Him: Mom. There’s plenty of space between me and the next car.

Me: Listen, I’m the driver here and you’re the learner. I’m telling you, there should be more space in case you need to stop suddenly.

Him: Fine.

Me: Whoa-Whoa-WHOA!!!!

Him: Geez, whoa-whoa-whoa. What are you whaoing about?

Me: That turn was a little much. You need to slow down more when you make a turn like that.

Him: Well “WHOA,” doesn’t help.

(We sit in silence for the next five minutes.)

Me: WHOA!

Him: What the hell did you just Whoa me again for?

Me: I wasn’t Whoaing you! I was saying Whoa about that person who just turned in front of you so suddenly. You need to watch out for other people who don't know how to drive. And don’t say hell to me.

Him: You need to settle down. (Pulls to the curb near the school.)

Me: Have a good day at school…I love you.

Him: Yep.

escape

   View of downtown Minneapolis from a hotel treadmill two weeks ago...Two weeks ago I was in Minneapolis during an icy, wet, snowstorm. And it felt like such a vacation.

I was at a conference for work – the first time I’ve ever had an employer send me somewhere to gather knowledge and bring it back. I went with a younger male co-worker named Matt; perhaps one of the most easy-going people I know. The first day we bummed around downtown on the skywalks, walked to Target Field, and learned that both of us lack any sort of internal mapping skills, which meant we got lost a lot.

After conference sessions we went to Irish pubs and drank beer and ate, listened to what mattered in each other’s lives, laughed, and were relieved to learn that neither of us were night owls – that we were both really excited about having three nights in our own hotel rooms to ourselves to read or do whatever the hell we wanted.

It was so much fun, this schedule of having my life simplified down to: which workshop sessions would the princess like to attend, where would she like to eat tonight, and should she work out on the treadmill or (gasp!) sleep in? Should she try the hotel’s breakfast, or mosey on over to the conference for their breakfast?

The deliciousness of this ease and self-focus left me a little rattled, wondering: How long away would it take me to really start to miss my life and my fellers?

This much I now know: LONGER THAN FOUR DAYS.

I tried to push the guilt aside, and do an honest inquiry. Here’s my life, Monday through Thursday: Wake at 6:45, take a shower and get dressed, make breakfast for the boys, make a breakfast and lunch to-go for me, feed and water the other beasts that live here, say goodbye to boys, hop on my bike for work, work from 8:30 to 5:30 (sometimes with a run from the office at lunch), bike home, check on chickens, make dinner for me and the boys, clean up dinner, feed and walk Angus, check email, check on the how boys are doing with homework, curl up with a book, fall dead asleep by 10:30…Repeat.

Weekends Shawn comes home from work, which offers a different rhythm and pace. We try to visit friends and/or family, get exercise, grocery shop and do some cooking for the week ahead, do the cleaning and projects that don’t get done during weekdays, pay bills – it feels like a 48 hour countdown until we go again.

I relayed all of this to a girlfriend the other night and she said, “You know, it might be time to get those boys to help out a bit more.”

So true. But sometimes managing them in doing housework feels like another chore as well…

And while this all sounds like complaining, here’s an ironic truth: This is the life I’ve chosen and love. And it’s a life that I will pine for when it’s just me and Shawn at home in a few short years.

But this trip made me realize my life also leaves me bone tired and craving escape sometimes as well.

Which is maybe why I wasn’t super pleased at first when I got home from Minnesota to find that along with six chickens, three beehives, three boys, two vegetable gardens, one dog, one cat, and a husband, I now have two ducks to add to the mix.

The ducks LOVE to swim in the tub. Angus likes to watch and hang out with them.

Oldest Son brought them to Shawn while I was gone saying, “Can you keep these guys and maybe eat them in the fall if they turn out to be a bother? My roommates are jackasses and got them as babies. They didn’t have any plans for them except to let them go at the pond when they got their feathers.”

They’re cute, these ducks. (Also, there’s not a chance that I’ll be eating them.) But they’re not quite ready to be outside full time yet, and you can SMELL them when you walk in the house. It’s a mix of duck urine and poop, and damp pine bedding that is impossible to keep dry for any appreciable amount of time because ducks play in water – no matter how tiny the bowl.

Interestingly, the duck smell now masks the smell of a leaky, used motorcycle that Oldest Son bought recently and parked in our garage – which seeps up the stairs and makes the family room smell like a gas station. The motorcycle smell masks the reek of deer heads from fall hunting season that Shawn has still not cleaned to become what the males in this house consider “wall art.”

In the meantime, still pining for Minneapolis…

your turn: author susan kushner resnick on talking to strangers and her latest book

Rancher Mary Pluhar and author Susan Resnick, wearing the T-shirts Resnick had made for one of their visit.

I first met Sue Resnick, a petite powerhouse of a woman, via email. She had written a book called Goodbye Wifes and Daughters, about a small-town mining disaster in Montana, which we reviewed and then hired her to write a history article about for  Montana Quarterly, the magazine I worked for as managing editor at the time.

Resnick lives on the East Coast, but was in Montana on vacation when the idea to write the book came to her. She and her family were watching pig races at the Bearcreek Saloon in Bearcreek, MT, and the saloon walls were covered with framed newspaper articles about the 1943 disaster. She read them and decided she wanted to read the book about it. “Turns out I had to write it first,” explains Resnick.

Resnick returned to Montana several times after her book was published to accept various awards, and on one of her trips emailed me and said, “I’m going to be in Bozeman. How about we meet in person somewhere fabulous for dinner?”

How could I refuse?

We had a great time, and before we said our goodbyes and returned to our very different lives, I felt connected, like we’d wasted no time sharing what was important with each other. It turns out that Resnick has a long resume of bridging gaps with strangers, which is how her most recent book, You Saved Me Too: What a holocaust survivor taught me about living, dying, fighting, loving and swearing in Yiddish, came to be.

It’s the story of a seemingly chance meeting where Resnick (then a mother of young children) finds herself conversing with Holocaust survivor Aron Lieb at a Jewish Community Center; what results is an intense 15 year friendship with a man who ends up with no one else to help him leave this world peacefully except for her. Resnick rises to the challenge, dealing with the present scars of his horrific past, all the while encountering nursing home and health care roadblocks she finds unthinkable for someone who has already suffered as much as her friend has.

This book-- and my dinner with Sue -- have left an imprint on me: you never know when you’ll meet someone you’ll never forget.

Q & A:

Before we get to your latest book, I have to ask you to explain the story behind the photo above:

While returning to MT several times to report, research and read from Goodbye Wifes, I met my first rancher, Mary Pluhar. We’d first met online after Homer Hickam, author of Rocket Boys and many books on his coal mining childhood, told me we’d like each other. We clicked and Mary drove from her ranch in Garfield County to my book launch in Red Lodge, where we first met in person. Since then, I’ve visited the ranch and she’s come to Boston to see me. We realized early on that she was the first rancher I’d ever met and I was the first Jewish person she’d ever met. I had the T-shirts in the photo made for us.

Supporting Aron (the main character in You Saved Me Too) required some bold fundraising efforts from you. What was asking for money for Aron like for you?

The hardest part was asking his brother for money. The nursing home that I was hoping would cover some of his expenses told me I had to appeal to family first. His brother, who’d also survived the Holocaust and built a successful life for himself, wasn’t involved in Aron’s care even though they spoke regularly. When I asked him for financial help, he refused.

Did your family ever express frustration with the time and energy Aron required of you in his last few years?

It’s funny – everyone asks me this. The answer is absolutely not. I spent most of my time with Aron while my kids were at school and my husband at work. Even my Sunday visits didn’t seem to interfere with their lives. They saw it as just one of Mom’s activities.

This friendship required a lot of you. Were there moments when it felt like too much?

It only felt like too much when I was dealing with the mean people who wouldn’t help Aron. He would have liked me to visit him daily in the nursing home, which would have been too much, but I knew I had to limit that.

Have you always talked to strangers?

Yes. The first thing I said to my first friend from nursery school was, “You’re going to be my friend.” We had met three minutes earlier. Talking to strangers opens up the world.

Do you think we will lose something when the last remaining holocaust survivors and their stories slip away?

 Some survivors could be as young as 70. We are definitely in danger of losing their stories. That’s one of the reasons I wrote about Aron’s history in the book. Since he had no children, I felt like the custodian of his memories.

You obviously have much to be proud about in your friendship with Aron. Looking back, is there anything you wish you’d said or done differently?

Not really. If I hadn’t made it to his bedside before he died or if he hadn’t had a peaceful death, I would have had many regrets. Luckily, neither of those things happened. I promised him he wouldn’t die alone and I got to fulfill that promise.

You are frank about your disappointment with various institutions and people in your community who didn’t help Aron when you approached them. Have you heard from any of them since the release of your book?

Yes. The president of the nursing home that I was so critical of invited me in for a talk. I was scared he was going to yell at me, but instead he apologized for the way Aron had been treated (he wasn’t involved with the institution at the time I was fighting with it) and offered to make changes so that Aron’s situation wouldn’t happen again.

Top three things that you learned from your friendship with Aron:

Don’t be afraid to speak out for what’s right. As long as babies aren’t dying (or a similar tragedy), nothing we complain about is that bad. Finding a soul mate has nothing to do with romance.

Your friendship with Aron allowed you to experience nursing homes and end-of-life scenarios in an intimate way. Has it changed how you are preparing for old age, etc.?

I’m actually not that scared of going to a nursing home. It seems like a college dorm for the elderly to me. If I have to move to one, I plan to live it up.

i hate myself, a true story

As I write this, here is the list of things I cannot find, for the life and sanity of me:

1. My wallet, with two credit cards, my driver’s license, a fresh book of checks backed by my just-deposited paycheck, a blood donor card and a collection of punch-cards to various food places…
2. My right hearing aid, worth $1,700, and just over a year old since Shawn bought me the matching set last Valentine’s Day, after cashing in one of his stray 401Ks from a past job.
3. One of the two spades that we own, necessary for turning the dirt in one of my raised bed boxes today, so that I could attempt to forget about misplaced items one and two.
4. My watering can, so that after I said F*@! It, and used my little hand shovel to turn the whole damn garden bed, I could water the lettuce mix I’d planted. (Shawn put the spades somewhere where I could not find them and is gone until late this evening. It seems obvious that this was intentional.)

Please note that when I lost my wallet AND my right hearing aid, I was not drinking. I might or might not be on my second glass of red wine right now. That’s how blogging works: you have no idea if I’m full of shit or not.

I’m guessing if you’re as distractable as I am, that you might have lost your wallet at some point in your life. If so, you know that there is an initial panic, then the realization as you trace back the blur of the past 24 hours since you last saw said wallet, there are places you can look, where it will likely show up.

Whew!

At this point you might utter a few Thankya Jesuses, with a little P.S. Did I mention how much I dig you? Then you go check those places where your wallet might be, muttering “pleaseohpleaseohplease” under your breath. If you’re me, you check  your briefcase, then your workout bag, then commence a full dismantling of the debris in your car, and then finally, a day later, a weekend trip to your office, which requires unlocking many doors and entering a dark silence that if you listen closely says: You are so hosed, Girlfriend. You then visit the grocery store where you wrote the last check from your wallet, thinking that such effort will surely be rewarded by someone – God, the Universe, Mother Theresa, the Dalai Lama, Pope Francis. Honestly, you like them all. You’d convert to anything right now if it would bring back your glorious, rainbow-filled wallet.

Then you recall how you never lock your car. How many valuable items do you need to have stolen from your car before you start locking it every.single.time? It is highly likely that you accidentally left your wallet in your unlocked car while at work, and someone found opportunity in your unwillingness to learn.

Day two of no wallet is when the hearing aid disappears from your ear. You can’t remember if you took it out and set it somewhere to talk on the phone, or if you took it out, itched your ear (you remember doing that), and then didn’t put it back in correctly, and it fell out somewhere. Perhaps you will find it water-logged and ruined while harvesting your spinach crop in 45 days.  

At this point you find yourself randomly looking at the heavens saying, “What?!”

You consider your options: Shawn already knows about the missing wallet, but maybe you don’t have to tell him about the hearing aid; your diamond tennis bracelet of sorts. Maybe over time your left ear will learn to compensate for righty, like a bionic ear or something. Maybe if that doesn’t work, and you find yourself asking him to repeat things a lot, he’ll just conclude that you've become slow, and you can put out more to make up for it and distract him.

There is no real purpose for this post. It’s just to announce that I officially hate myself. Also, as you might suspect by that statement, my wallet and hearing aid are still gone, after checking everywhere I can freaking think of to locate either of them. At this point, just finding one of these two valuable items would make me pleased as punch.  

My next step is to cancel my credit cards, checks, and to get a new driver’s license. My next lunch break not spent running errands to replace my losses will likely be in 2014. Feel free to pity me.

I hope your life is better than this.

Enjoy it.

I’m fine.

No really.

The end.