Abuela

When I reached middle age I began to imagine myself as a grandmother.  I often wondered whether my grandchildren would love me as much as they would love their other grandmother.  I imagined this unknown rival for my grandchildren's affection as a petite, sweet woman.  Surely she would be all smiles and hugs and chocolate chip cookies, typical grandmother material.  How would I ever compete?  Me - towering over them with my pragmatism, sarcasm and biting wit.  

My own life experience should have made me realize these thoughts were ridiculous.  I was fortunate enough to get to know both my grandmothers.  I never compared the love I had for each of them.  I loved them equally but in different ways. 

My paternal grandmother was very involved in my life.  I saw her regularly until her death when I was 30 years old.  I knew her strengths and her weaknesses and loved her dearly.  She was an intelligent, beautiful woman who always managed to make me feel special.  My maternal grandmother lived in Germany.  I saw her rarely.  When I did see her I needed a translator because she didn't speak English and I didn't speak German.  Even so, I was captivated by her quiet, calm demeanor.  Her personal stories of WWII Germany were told in the most matter of fact way despite the horror she faced.  She was a strong, sensible woman who didn't let her difficult life diminish the joy she took in living.  

 Choosing which one I loved more would be preposterous. They were both a part of me and me of them.  It wasn't a contest.  

I met my daughter's mother-in-law at the wedding in October 2009.  She was sweet and kind and loving and tiny.  A strong contender for the affection of our future grandchildren. But instead of confirming my worst fears I suddenly realized that any thoughts of rivalry were complete and utter nonsense.  She and her husband seemed like family from the minute we met.  Such wonderful people.  My daughter couldn't have picked a better family to become a part of. How lucky my grandkids would be to have one big, loving family. I began to imagine the joy she and I would share, both being grandmothers to the same wonderful grandchildren.  

Sadly, this wonderful woman passed away last May.  I think about her often.  She was a special woman.  I feel ashamed now of my petty worries about who would be favorite.   I am overcome with sadness when I think about the loss her husband and sons must bear every day.  I am also deeply sad for the grandchildren who will never know her gentle kindness, her genuine warmth and her loving hugs.  They will have to rely on their father to tell them what a special person she was.   I would gladly play second fiddle to her if only it would bring her back.  All I'll be able to do though is give those grandkids an extra little squeeze from her every time I hug them, and I will.     

Be careful that your "Line in the Sand" isn't really drawn in cement.

Is your story about what a hardass you are so fragile that you are willing to ruin family relationships over it?  I guess they really weren't that important to you in the first place.  One after the other.

They Don't Wear Buttons

Monsters don't wear buttons.  It's in their best interest to blend in with the rest of us.  To look like the "nice guy next door",  "the faithful husband", or even "the well respected coach".  Sadly, the people who end up seeing  what lurks in a monster's heart are his victims.

We had a next door neighbor in the old neighborhood who was a monster.  At least his suicide leads me to believe the stories were true.  Having served time in prison for selling drugs I think he knew what was in store for him once his girlfriend called the police.  He had been messing around with her very young daughters.  Probably not a predator but a sick opportunist.  He slit his wrists while lying in a bathtub full of water.

I had lived next door to the man for 15 years and never would have suspected.  He seemed pretty harmless to me.  I guess to grown ups he was.

Creeps are different than monsters.  They're openly slimy.  Like the cashier at the grocery store who can't take his eyes off of the women's chests.  All the while he has a disgusting lecherous smile on his face.  Creeps are easy to avoid.  Just pick a different line.

But watch out for monsters.  Don't assume that the unthinkable is impossible.  That so and so would never do such and such.  That's what monsters want you to think.

Same as I've Always Been

The farther I get into middle age the more marginalized I feel.  Young adults, strangers and family alike, have a way of talking to me lately that makes me feel like they are drawing on some deep reserve of patience to get through their interchange with me.  I have become mostly invisible to the younger generation.  When they are forced to deal with me it often doesn't go well.  My life experience sometimes puts me a step ahead of them.  I'm anticipating where things are going to go and try to skip a few steps to get us where we are going to end up anyway.  After all, time is getting shorter and shorter for me.  I want to hurry these mundane interactions along as much as possible.  They don't hear that I just gave them the answer to the next five questions they are going to ask.  They roll their eyes, sigh and go back to question one.  I sigh, roll my eyes back at them and go through their step by step routine with them.  Then they think I'm cranky as well as clueless.  

In my own family I see the young people's lives expanding and growing beyond my realm. Not just my realm of influence but also of inclusion.  They have big, busy, successful lives that I am a smaller and smaller part of.  They are independent grownups leading full and rich lives.  I am happy for them. Even so I still find myself feeling left out sometimes or worrying that I'm being a nuisance when I call.  Sometimes after I talk to one of them I think to myself "I wonder if this is how Mom felt when this happened to her?"  It makes me wish I could go back in time having experienced the dynamics of both sides.  I would have been more understanding and patient.  A little less, "yeah, yeah Mom, I know......"     

I have my own life and most parts of it are better than they have ever been, my marriage, my relationships with friends and family, my confidence in who I am and what I am about.  But this shift in my position within society and especially my family is unsettling.  I waited a few days to post this.  I know my kids read my blog and I don't want them to get the wrong idea or to feel bad.  I don't want sympathy or for them to change anything.  Just to know that I understand things are different and that it's going to take some getting used to.  I'll get through it.

Not Worth It

I'm not sure when the freeways of this country turned into Mad Max all day, every day.  It's been a gradual sort of thing.  I would wager that the decline in civility closely tracks the increase in both the average video game hours played per US citizen and the number of reality TV shows being aired.  We've lost our ability to empathize with one another.  The cars around us aren't filled with other human beings living the same sorts of lives we do.  They are competitors, trying to get an edge over me, take advantage of me, God forbid - get one or two cars ahead of me.   People cut you off, don't use their blinkers, won't let you in when you use your blinker.  Everybody is out for themselves, screw the next guy.  

I am just as guilty as the next person too.  I recently had a whole line of cars refuse to let me into their lane even though I was approaching a construction barricade with nowhere else to go.  I hadn't tried to zip ahead of anybody.  I tried to get over as soon as I saw the merge sign.  I didn't do anything to warrant this animosity.  Clearly the only motivation was not wanting another person in front of them.  I don't know where they thought I was going to go. I had to merge.  I finally muscled my way in.  

I could have left it there, ignored the lane blockers.  Instead, in keeping with Mad Max rules, I did my best to give back as good as I got.  I let everybody who had been behind me in the merging lane go in front of me.  The lane blockers had to sit and watch as car after car pulled in front of them.   They were furious.  I cackled madly at them.  It felt like a victory.  I had a car full of people.  Looking back on it, not one of my better moments, quite the maniacal spectacle to behold.

Every day I drive the same freeway to and from work.  M14 between Plymouth and Ann Arbor.  The same drama plays out every day.  Left lane is for faster traffic and right lane is for slower traffic.  The left lane generally moves along at an acceptable pace.  Occasionally somebody goes too slowly and you pass when you can.   Every single day one or more people come speeding up from the right lane, even though they clearly see that the right lane is blocked and at some point they will have to cut somebody off to get back into the left lane.  I feel my blood pressure rising.  I start thinking "Oh no you don't".  Then I realize I've got a death grip in the steering wheel and am tailgating to keep people from getting into the left lane.  

Stop.  Take a deep breath.  Think about this for a minute.  It's not going to kill me to let them in.  I'm not actually teaching them any lessons.  They'll be back the next day doing it all over again.  I back off and let them go in front of me.  

When I am nice and considerate you should see how smug and satisfied I am with myself.  When I take pity on some poor soul and wave them into the spot in front of me.  I act as if I've just performed some great humanitarian act.  See how considerate I am?  I'm not like the rest of these barbarians.  I get so mad when people don't acknowledge my courtesy.  A wave?  I don't get a wave?   This small act of benevolence is way out proportion with the huge pat on the back I give myself.  Shouldn't this be the standard?  Some patience, consideration and  a little bit of "live and let live" would go a long way towards making everybody a little less stressed out all the freaking time.

The more I think about this the more parallels I see to the current political landscape.  No ground will be given so everything must be seized. 

Never the Same

Of course I remember where I was on September 11, 2001.

I had just finished having breakfast with somebody we were thinking about re-hiring at work.  He was a friend too. It was a nice breakfast.  It was a beautiful fall day.  I got to the office, sat down at my desk and immediately got a phone call from my husband.  He said "They're crashing planes into the World Trade Center."  I didn't believe him.  Then I saw all the commotion out in the office.  People on the phone, people talking in a very animated way.  I stepped outside my office door.  Everybody else was saying the same thing.

I'm sure most of you were glued to your TVs throughout the day, like I was.  I was horrified, shocked and yet somehow it seemed unreal.  This couldn't really be happening.  Then rumors started about other planes not accounted for, other targets.  We let everybody go home.  Nobody knew how widespread it was or when it would stop.

I thought about how less than a year before I had been in New York for an annual meeting with the HR people from our affiliates around the country.  Our meeting had been in the North Tower of the World Trade Center, the 90 something floor.  I don't remember exactly.  It was hosted by our insurance broker, Marsh McLennan.     They were very nice offices and the view from that high up was impressive.  I remember the towers swaying slightly and I remember a helicopter flying by below us.  While I was in that meeting my husband and kids, who had come with me on the trip, were touring the top of the South Tower of the WTC and the plaza below.

Eleven months later the eight floors of the North Tower that Marsh occupied took a direct hit from AA Flight 11, the first plane to hit.  Nobody at work that day for Marsh McLennan at the WTC survived the attack.  Two hundred ninety five people gone.  I remember talking to our broker a few months after the attack.  His office was in mid-town, not the towers.  He was so profoundly sad, having attended funeral after funeral for his lost co-workers.  I couldn't help thinking about how it could have been us there had the attack been 11 months earlier. I was so thankful my family was safe.

The devastation of 9/11 really hit me when I got a call from my friend.  Her niece had been on United Flight 93.  Her name was Deora Bodley and she was the youngest passenger on the plane that day, only 20 years old.   I had met Deora's mom a few times.  A nice lady.  Very intense.  I met Deora once when she was probably 16 or 17 at my friend's wedding.   She seemed like a very sweet girl.  We didn't say more than hello to each other when we were introduced.  I had no real connection to her.  But I knew how close their family was.  I knew how much my friend's parents loved and cherished each of their grandkids.  I knew how proud they all were of Deora.  The tragedy of 9/11 became their family tragedy.

Today, like every September 11th, I can't help but think about Deora and my friend and her family.  I wonder if it helps that their personal loss is felt to some degree by the entire nation.  Or does it make it harder that their grief will be forever shared with the world? Is the significance of their personal loss diminished by the enormity of it all? It's more than 9/11, it's their family and it will never be the same.  Neither will we.

FINE! NO CATS!

Jim has been adamant.  No more cats.  Every time I bring it up he just points to the door sills.  Miss Tinkerbell left scratches on nearly every single one of them.  Pine is very soft wood that scratches very easily.  Although, I guess to be fair I really should call them gouges and not scratches.  I never caught her in the act but it was clear she would stretch to full height on her back legs, dig in all of her claws and sharpen away.  It looked like a wolverine had been let loose in the house.  

After my daughter moved out and took Tinkerbell with her I was with Jim 100%.  No more litter boxes.  No more cat hair.   Then I started to miss having one around. They can be fun, especially the young ones.  There's no creature on earth more appreciative of a good scratching and petting than a cat.  My desire for a cat only got worse once I started volunteering at the shelter and saw how many homeless cats fill the cages.  Easily 4 - 5 times more than the dogs.  Poor babies. 

I started to test the waters...... all those poor homeless cats.  No way.  Then I tried the "birthday" thing.  Saying I wanted a Siamese kitten for my 49th.  No.  I promised to keep the soft caps on the claws.  No.  I begged.  No. FINE, NO CATS!

Then, as luck would have it, a friend of my daughter's was looking for an emergency kitten sitter.   I offered to take the cute little furball in.  I thought that Jim would change his mind about cats once he got some kitten time.  They're so much fun.

It worked.  Jim loved the kitten and the kitten loved Jim.  Jim loved to play with the kitten and we both loved watching the little guy run all over the house playing with anything he could get his paws on.  He'd run under the bed and hang from the box spring upside down like Spiderman waiting for someone to walk by so he could grab their toes.  

I started picking out names for the new little Siamese kitten I was going to get, Seymour, Biscuit, Ritz.  Then the kitten made a fatal mistake.  While I was getting ready for work one morning I left the kitten in with a sleeping Jim.  The kitten started to do mad dashes across the bed, clawing over top of Jim every time.  Zoom, zip.....  It was over.  One thing I've learned is Jim gets cranky when you mess with his sleep.  Jim's resolve to never own another cat returned with a vengeance.  

We returned the kitten.  I was a little sad to see him go but as I thought about it I realized visiting kittens are one thing but a long term commitment to a cat is another. Too bad you can't just rent a kitten once in awhile.