WordSisters

Category: Family

  • Five Things I’m Grateful for this Thanksgiving

    The isolation brought on by the pandemic has taken its toll on many of us, me included. As a result, rather than seeing the glass half full as I once did, I became a list maker of tiny gripes: endless emails, bad drivers, unreturned phone calls and year-late healthcare bills topped my list.

    Thankfully, it didn’t take long to realize that focusing on the negative wasn’t helpful. So I recruited a “bliss buddy” with whom I began sharing what I was grateful for: the beauty of nature, the kindness of strangers and the compassion of friends made the list often.

    So did my sister Karen who, for the past 152 days, has sent me a text each morning to remind me that I am both loved and lovable. Her kind words have become the background music of my days, often uplifting my spirits before I even realize they need it.

    Here are four other things I am especially grateful for this Thanksgiving:

    • My aunt Caroline. In February 2020, I wrote my first Word Sisters blog post. It was about my aunt and uncle, both in their 90s. He had recently been hospitalized, she had recently suffered a stroke. While he has since died, she continues to thrive, despite having lost the ability to speak clearly or use the right side of her body. The last of my mother’s siblings, she’s an amazing role model whose light continues to shine bright and who shows me that I can age with gusto despite the challenges I may face.
    • My health and healthcare providers. I’ve taken my physical and mental health for granted my entire life. Then, one day in August 2020, despite routinely walking 10,000 steps a day, I could barely get myself around the block. After an MRI, I was told I needed to have my hip replaced. I opted for physical therapy instead and am now able to walk to my heart’s content once again. I also opted to see a mental health therapist. Her support keeps me grounded in the here and now yet gives me hope that I can—and will—change.
    • My book group. I’ve been a member of my book group going on three decades. During that time, one member was murdered by her husband, another died of cancer. Most of us have lost our parents, all of us are coming to terms with our own aging. Getting together every other month means meaningful conversations with women I trust who know both my good and bad qualities and who offer their unconditional love and support.
    • The ability to say no. I’ve been a people pleaser my whole life, afraid of disappointing others. That sometimes meant staying on committees that drained me, meeting friends for cocktails when I didn’t want to be drinking and driving across town in rush-hour traffic when I wanted to be curled up on the couch. The pandemic lessened the things I was invited to do and made it easier to say no to things that weren’t in line with my priorities.

    What are you grateful for this Thanksgiving? Please share.

  • She’s in the Book

    On page 7, Crystel wrote, Are you skimming through this? I would have flown through the 421 pages of Khaled Hosseini’s novel, And The Mountains Echoed or flipped to the back of the book and started reading to the front. Her notation stopped me.  

    She had made it impossible. The book was a birthday gift from her. More significantly, throughout the book she underlined, drew pictures, commented, and gave of herself. How could I skim one single page when I could miss a piece of her? Her insights. Her thoughts. Her feelings.

    On page 2 she underlined, cause he had a family that he cherished above all things. A paragraph later next to, Baba Ayub privately had a unique fondness for one among them, his youngest, she teased, just like you.

    My daughter brought me along on her personal journey and in essence we were reading the book together.

    At times she encouraged, Don’t cry, mom and Don’t panic, mom on difficult passages such as when Father hit Abdullah.

    Sometimes she questioned But why? Or guessed, I bet he’s gonna leave them or something.

    She compared the book to her own life. Shuja the dog was our Sadie. About Kabul, she wrote, Kinda picturing Guatemala.

    Her frustration showed, Soooo many diff. names. IDK who is who! and, So we are just gonna forget about the vanished girl?

    I began to read the novel to unearth her and understand her inner world.  

    After, Father went after Shuja with a stick, wasI am sobbing.

    I would be both LOL but also amazed and touched she wrote when Nabi discovered that Mr. Wahdati was sketching him.

    She entertained me with her own sketches of a sleeping cow, trees, a duck, cars, eyeballs, and the devil.

    My birthday is a few weeks after Crystel left for college. When I picked the book up in the evening, it staved off the heartache. Emotionally I was with her. What a gift!

    It was easier with Mother – always had been – less complicated, less treacherous. I didn’t have to be on guard much. I didn’t have to watch what I said all the time for fear of inflicting a wound. A sketch of a little heart floated on the side of the page.

    I snapped a photo of the passage she had underlined and texted it to her. Let her know that I heard her. That finna be us, she responded, with a couple of emojis. I know! I answered. Making a vow to always be there for her, a promise that only our hearts could hear.

  • Hiding Out

    Porcelain, cardboard, tin, and plastic Jack o’ lanterns grin from a ledge in the laundry room. I moved them to the basement the morning after Halloween along with candy corn lights and a gauzy witch that cackles when someone walks past. Here’s my sad secret, Halloween is nowhere near my favorite holiday. I find it kind of scary for other reasons.

    In Luxemburg, WI there was no trick or treating. We wore our costumes to school and at night a parade happened on Main Street. Candy and substantial treats were thrown from the town’s firetrucks. Many of the town’s 400 or so residents, including many who drove in from their farms, stood on the sidewalk to collect the goodies.  Then everyone joined the parade for about a six block walk to where a bonfire burned at the fairgrounds. Adults and kids partied and danced way after a school night’s normal bedtime.

    When we moved to Milwaukee my mother declared her children were not going to ring strangers’ doorbells to beg for candy. She called the city’s Halloween traditions dangerous. And she wasn’t going to encourage others to ring our doorbell. So instead of a parade or walking the neighborhood with other kids, our parents took us to a shopping mall for the special treat of dinner out. If stores offered a treat bag, we were allowed to accept. 

    My brother managed to weasel out of the family outing after a couple of years. He claimed he was going to help a friend distribute candy so the parents could walk with younger siblings. I snuck out one year with a girlfriend whose mother called to invite me to a sleepover party. It was a ruse because they felt so bad that I had not experienced the joy of running around in the dark with a pillowcase to collect candy. 

    Only I didn’t really find it all that fun. I heard my mother’s disgust with kids begging for candy and caution about the city’s danger. I was kind of afraid of scary costumes and decorations. I worried my parents would drive around the neighborhood and recognize a cheerleader wearing white tennis shoes as their daughter. By high school Halloween parties frequently included booze or pot which weren’t my thing.

    Fortunately, I was great at disguising my fear of Halloween from our children who adored the holiday. A granddaughter’s enthusiastic participation in anything connected to Halloween is awesome. I still decorate and usually keep a treat bowl filled, but I’m more comfortable spending Halloween in the basement reading a book.