WordSisters

Tag: Elizabeth di Grazia

  • Die With Zero

    Our family skipped Christmas this year. I first realized that when I returned from Hawaii on January 6. White twinkle and icicle lights strung from guttering sparkled in the chilly evening air. Multi-colored mini bulbs wrapped around shrubs and trees glowed in snow covered yards.

    Except at our home. Our flight had departed from Minneapolis on December 16th. Jody and I had decided to not put up any holiday lights. Not even an artificial Christmas tree. Decorations stayed stored in the garage rafters.

    In Whalers Village on Maui, we had our picture taken in front of the Christmas tree and noticed the island-style holiday decorations adorning hotel fronts.

    On Christmas day there weren’t any presents. Instead, each person was to buy a $20 gift in Hawaii for the steal, switch, gift exchange dice game.

    Our Hawaii experience was the gift: surf lessons, visiting a cat sanctuary on the island of Lanai, glass blowing, ATV tour, whale watching, hang gliding, a luau, and most important, being together.

    Absent was any questioning if there were going to be Christmas presents. Absent was the stress of gift buying. Absent for me was any depression or negative feelings from past memories of the holidays.

    It was after our trip that I started reading Die With Zero, written by Bill Perkins.

    The premise of the book is to maximize your life enjoyment rather than on maximizing your wealth. Focus on generating memorable life experiences. Live life to the fullest. Don’t wait until you’re too old to be able to enjoy doing things.

    Jody and I have taken many vacation trips with Juan and Crystel. I’ve included activities that we haven’t done before. We invite their friends. We generate memories.

    I was so taken by this book that I purchased one for Jody, Juan, and Crystel. This summer we are planning on returning to Guatemala. Crystel and I will do a month-long homestay and attend Spanish school. Jody, Juan and his girlfriend will join us for the 5th week. We will visit with both birth families. Juan will introduce his girlfriend to his birth mom. All of us will revisit the best of Guatemala. (We’ve vacationed in Guatemala five times).

    Juan’s 21st birthday is in July. Crystel’s 21st birthday in September. Their gift will be our Guatemala experience.

    Jody and I are planning to hike across Spain in the spring of 2024 (before I forget any Spanish). We’ll check in with the kids from time to time. We wouldn’t want them to worry. I view my age from 65-75 as being the healthiest for hiking, traveling, and seeing the country. If we don’t have the kid’s inheritance spent (the book says that optimal age for receiving inheritance is between ages 26-35) – Juan and Crystel will be at the prime age for receiving our inheritance when we finally start to slow down.

    There are a lot of holidays to skip between now and then. Many adventures, experiences, and memories to generate.

  • A Flower Within a Flower

    A Flower Within a Flower

    I like being here with Crystel in her dorm room on Oahu. She lies on the air mattress eyeing her computer. She’s researching how to replace her lost passport. She hasn’t been able to find it since applying for a job near Waikiki Beach. Her plans to travel to Japan and Guatemala are in jeopardy.

    I break the companiable silence. “How’s it going with the lost passport?”

    “After I’m done eating,” she answers.

    I laugh. Of course. Our sense of urgency is not the same. She’ll let me know when she needs help.

    Her dorm room is spare. The University of Manoa campus is empty. Jody and I had previously thought that other families would have done the same as we did: vacationed in Hawaii with their national student exchange family member for holiday break. Instead, students had only stayed a semester and had already returned to the mainland. Crystel would be alone for New Year’s and the following week before school started. Her friend, Allie, who had visited from Minnesota had also returned home.

    Lanikai Pillbox trail with Allie

    Jody and I had worried about Crystel being on a vacated campus and returning to her empty dorm room in the evening from her new job. We also didn’t want her to be alone on the holiday.

    During the Maui part of our vacation when I told her our concern she said, “Why don’t you come stay with me?”

    “You should,” Jody agreed.

    It didn’t take a moment for me to know that was exactly what I would do.

    32 years ago, when I went into the Peace Corps, volunteers received their initial training for the Kingdom of Tonga on Oahu. During the plane ride from Minnesota to Hawaii, tears flowed down my cheeks. In the airplane bathroom I tried to stuff them back in. With each mile I flew – watching the dot on the large airplane screen move closer and closer to Hawaii – I shed layer after layer of my life until I knew this to be true: I had been abandoned. I was that child, that teenager, the one who had been left to fend for herself against the sexual abuse that raged in our home. To protect my three younger sisters, I reported the abuse to the police when I was nineteen years old. My parents disowned me.

    I was abandoned.

    Hanakapial Falls

    I didn’t want Crystel to feel abandoned. To be alone. I didn’t want her walking on a deserted campus. Spending a week with her and seeing her life would be a gift. An adventure.

    Hiking Lanikai Pillbox Trail with her and Allie, visiting beaches, an arduous 8-mile waterfall hike on Kauai, and kayaking were a few of the things we did.

    It was on the Pillbox hike that Crystel asked me what I was thinking. I told her that I had been on this island before. How my past influences my parenting. She pointed a blossom out to Allie and me, “See that flower within a flower?”

    My children are a flower within a flower. They have the holding space – love – to be beautiful and a landing spot – their mothers – to feel safe and flourish.

  • As The Wind Blows

    That’s what our daughter says.

    When she first landed in Hawaii, we enjoyed our daily chats with her.

    Jody and I asked her about the phone calls: too much, too little, how are you doing? We wanted to be present for her and yet also give her the space she needed.

    We knew we were at the end of our daily calls when three weeks later we disrupted her at breakfast. Dining at IHOP with newly found college friends, she left the table to answer our call.

    “Oh, yeah, so you don’t need to call me anymore,” she said.

    “Wait. Wait. Wait,” Jody and I responded. “We expect at least a weekly phone call.”

    It took Crystel a few weeks to remember whether it was a Wednesday or Thursday that we were going to call. That made for a fortuitous two phone calls in a week. The parents were being weaned from adult daughter contact.

    Facetime worked the best. At least we could see her, study her face, discern if anything was off, and she could make faces at us in the camera and use it to check her brow line.

    We had been asking her the same questions, week after week. How is school? How are your roommates? How is the dining hall? What plans do you have for this weekend? Our weekly conversations changed the first time she used the line, “As the wind blows.” I felt like she was putting us off. Dismissing us.

    She had been planning an outing with her roommates to swim with the sharks. It didn’t happen because as the wind blows.

    I thought she was being disrespectful. I told her that we needed more engagement from her. She needed to add to the conversation.

    After the phone call, when I had time to cool down, I realized that what she was saying was true. Isn’t that the way of most college students and young adults – as the wind blows. And didn’t I embrace spontaneity? Encourage her to follow her joy?

    Personally, I love being in the moment, being able to go inside to determine my path or action. I phrase it as introspection.

    We’ve learned to anticipate the changing winds. She’s made friends, adventured to the northern parts of Oahu, flew to Maui for a weekend, snorkeled, cliff jumped, and learned to surf. She did eventually swim with the sharks.

    Crystel requested and received a permit for solo hiking on the island of Kauai for the first week in January. Though she explained that maybe she would explore the island with a friend and do day excursions, she didn’t know yet.

    Letting go of our adult child is a kite in the wind. I’m proud of her. A bit nervous for her. And hope the winds always blow strong and true.

    “Ua pa mai ka makani…” / “The wind has been blowing…