I was sound asleep last night when I opened my eyes (I think) and saw a looming image of my mother's face just above my head. I am sure it was a dream only, but it made me remember what I had forgotten: the date she died, February 24. I also thought immediately of Woody Allen's 1989 film entitled New York Stories in which the protagonist must deal constantly with an overwhelming mother. In several scenes, the mother appears as a giant in the sky still dispensing advice to her errant son. I wondered what I still needed to learn from my deceased mother, and it came to me. We needed, if possible even after death, to forgive each other for what we were and for what we weren't.
Up until this point I had thought that the whole idea of forgiveness was one-sided only. I needed to forgive my mother for not trying hard enough during her single years in Mississippi. She would always complain about my father's lack of responsibility for the family, yet my sister and I were required to raise ourselves as she lay in the bed for hours with stomach pain, headaches, and clinical depression. When she was up from the bed, she was often very critical and angry. After several years of this, she finally took us to her mother (a sixty-three year old widow) to complete raising while she worked in Memphis.
I now realize that I also needed forgiveness for what I was as well. I, as a result of being away from my mother so much during the formative teen years, was distant and non-communicative. The effort on my part seemed to be too great. I now realize I should have made that effort, at least called or written more often. When she would visit in the fall, I often did not have the time (at least I had convinced myself of that) to sit and talk the way she wanted.
If it is possible to communicate with those who have gone on before us, I believe I can say, "I'm sorry." Freud certainly had it right, though not on all points, that mothers are towering figures in our relationships both in death and life.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
An Education
I have been waiting for several weeks to see the art film An Education based on Lynn Barber's memoir and Nick Hornby's screenplay. My husband and I finally saw it last Friday. The film is set in 1961 in England around a young woman who is being pushed by her father to achieve the grades and standardized test scores she needs in order to be admitted to Oxford. Of course, the protagonist, as a complication, immediately meets an older man, falls in love, loses her virginity, and confronts the choice of a lifetime: to marry or to get a higher education. I knew I would love this film because I was confronted with the same choice also as a senior in high school.
During the summer of my junior year, I met a second lieutenant stationed in Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. My mother and I had gone down to the coast in order to renew our relationship since I had been living with my grandmother for the past four years. I was sixteen, and he was twenty-two. He drove a baby blue Corvette convertible. I had to admit I was smitten in many ways because it was with him that I discovered many of the activities previously reserved for adults only. I was able to go to the Officers Club on base, for example, and hear a blues singer in a darkened, smoky room singing, "When I Fall in Love" in her sultry voice. I was able to see him "protect" me when he thought one of his friends in the club was coming on to me. When I went back to the Mississippi Delta for my senior year, he came up one weekend to my grandmother's house and proposed. Of course, my mother said "no" with the usual arguments: she's too young, she doesn't know what she wants, she needs to consider college, etc.
Ultimately, the decision came down to what I wanted, and it was an easy decision. Since the ninth grade, I had wanted to go to college and become an English teacher. I did not know how I would accomplish this goal, however, so I told my friends I planned to work and perhaps attend college later. I did precisely that: I worked full-time, took two night classes per semester and in the summer, and eventually finished two years before I married. I admit though that I did briefly consider what it would be like to travel the world with my Air Force husband in uniform. Ultimately though, a small voice within me urging independence won out.
I have never regretted this decision, and I assume that Lynn Barber in her memoir feels the same way. Both of us are published authors and have achieved our career goals without making a decision to marry too early that we might have both been sorry for.
During the summer of my junior year, I met a second lieutenant stationed in Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. My mother and I had gone down to the coast in order to renew our relationship since I had been living with my grandmother for the past four years. I was sixteen, and he was twenty-two. He drove a baby blue Corvette convertible. I had to admit I was smitten in many ways because it was with him that I discovered many of the activities previously reserved for adults only. I was able to go to the Officers Club on base, for example, and hear a blues singer in a darkened, smoky room singing, "When I Fall in Love" in her sultry voice. I was able to see him "protect" me when he thought one of his friends in the club was coming on to me. When I went back to the Mississippi Delta for my senior year, he came up one weekend to my grandmother's house and proposed. Of course, my mother said "no" with the usual arguments: she's too young, she doesn't know what she wants, she needs to consider college, etc.
Ultimately, the decision came down to what I wanted, and it was an easy decision. Since the ninth grade, I had wanted to go to college and become an English teacher. I did not know how I would accomplish this goal, however, so I told my friends I planned to work and perhaps attend college later. I did precisely that: I worked full-time, took two night classes per semester and in the summer, and eventually finished two years before I married. I admit though that I did briefly consider what it would be like to travel the world with my Air Force husband in uniform. Ultimately though, a small voice within me urging independence won out.
I have never regretted this decision, and I assume that Lynn Barber in her memoir feels the same way. Both of us are published authors and have achieved our career goals without making a decision to marry too early that we might have both been sorry for.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Why Does It Have to be So Sad?
I took my granddaughter last Sunday afternoon to the Arts Center in Little Rock to see a production of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. Of course, as the play was performed, one could hear many sniffles throughout the audience (primarily from the adults who were familiar with the novel upon which the play is based). These emotions flowed when Beth, one of the younger sisters, gives slippers to Theodore's Grandpa who had lost his granddaughter when she was young. Another scene occurs when the family fears their father, who is in the Civil War and very ill will die, and another when Beth contracts scarlet fever. At the conclusion of the play in the question and answer session, one of the young audience members asked this question, "Why does it have to be so sad?" I think it is a question many readers ask of literature no matter what their age, and it brings up the traditional question we ask about writing, "Should it simply entertain or teach?" I have always fallen into the category of believing writing should be realistic. As such we can learn the lesson once again, "We read to know we are not alone."
Yes, confronting difficult life experiences in literature is hard, but at the same time it teaches us to deal emotionally with our own issues. For example, our granddaughter is now eleven years old, a tween as she often tells us. Her parents divorced a year ago, and she has now dealt with her mother's new boyfriend and his daughters as part of the new family scenario. She and her brother spend six days a month with her dad. She is in that transition stage from childhood to adulthood; one days she plays with her Barbie dolls and the next day she watches the Twilight movies. I believe that reading literature and watching plays of children dealing with difficult situations in their lives is healthy. After all, it is one way that "little women" might become "compassionate good-hearted women."
Yes, confronting difficult life experiences in literature is hard, but at the same time it teaches us to deal emotionally with our own issues. For example, our granddaughter is now eleven years old, a tween as she often tells us. Her parents divorced a year ago, and she has now dealt with her mother's new boyfriend and his daughters as part of the new family scenario. She and her brother spend six days a month with her dad. She is in that transition stage from childhood to adulthood; one days she plays with her Barbie dolls and the next day she watches the Twilight movies. I believe that reading literature and watching plays of children dealing with difficult situations in their lives is healthy. After all, it is one way that "little women" might become "compassionate good-hearted women."
Thursday, January 21, 2010
I Have Crossed Famous Rivers
My book club has chosen to read Nelson Mandela's memoir Long Walk to Freedom for its next discussion. Since I am generally a fan of memoirs as a genre, I am enjoying the walk with Mandela. I have reached the point in his story where he has returned to his hometown as a young man now in law school, having completed his B.A. degree. He makes the statement as he leaves home once again for the city, "I have crossed famous rivers." Essentially, it means that once one has traveled to various places afar, he or she gains wisdom and knowledge.
As I consider my own walk in comparison to Mandela's, I realize that we were both born into segregated societies; his was South Africa, and mine was the Mississippi Delta. As a child in poverty and as I completed high school, I had little hope that I would accomplish anything in my life other than perhaps working as a secretary and in the future buying a Jim Walters pre-fab, two-bedroom house. My dreams were simple. After all, my high school was literally located in the middle of a cotton patch.
Through the years, however, like Mandela I began to enlarge my view of the world and its possibilities. As with Mandela, I learned early that the hope of a better life was through education. I pursued that goal diligently for twenty-four years (kindergarten through a doctoral program). Like Mandela, as the years went on, I have crossed famous rivers. The first was likely the Mississippi River on my way after my high school graduation to live in Wichita. When my mother moved to Seattle, I loved taking the boat across Puget Sound into Victoria, B.C., and later up the Inside Passage toward Alaska. My first international trip included a boat ride on the Prinsengracht in Amsterdam and one in Kiev, Ukraine, on the Dnieper River. Later I cruised to a renowned zoo across Sydney Harbour in Australia. A final trip five years ago included day cruises on the Rhine in Germany and the Seine in Paris. I am sure there must be others I have forgotten.
The point is that, like Mandela, I have learned much about different cultures through my travel experiences and thereby hope I too have become wiser and more knowledgeable about the world in general. Like the bildungsroman in literature, one cannot return home after crossing famous rivers without being, fully changed.
As I consider my own walk in comparison to Mandela's, I realize that we were both born into segregated societies; his was South Africa, and mine was the Mississippi Delta. As a child in poverty and as I completed high school, I had little hope that I would accomplish anything in my life other than perhaps working as a secretary and in the future buying a Jim Walters pre-fab, two-bedroom house. My dreams were simple. After all, my high school was literally located in the middle of a cotton patch.
Through the years, however, like Mandela I began to enlarge my view of the world and its possibilities. As with Mandela, I learned early that the hope of a better life was through education. I pursued that goal diligently for twenty-four years (kindergarten through a doctoral program). Like Mandela, as the years went on, I have crossed famous rivers. The first was likely the Mississippi River on my way after my high school graduation to live in Wichita. When my mother moved to Seattle, I loved taking the boat across Puget Sound into Victoria, B.C., and later up the Inside Passage toward Alaska. My first international trip included a boat ride on the Prinsengracht in Amsterdam and one in Kiev, Ukraine, on the Dnieper River. Later I cruised to a renowned zoo across Sydney Harbour in Australia. A final trip five years ago included day cruises on the Rhine in Germany and the Seine in Paris. I am sure there must be others I have forgotten.
The point is that, like Mandela, I have learned much about different cultures through my travel experiences and thereby hope I too have become wiser and more knowledgeable about the world in general. Like the bildungsroman in literature, one cannot return home after crossing famous rivers without being, fully changed.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Rich Treasures for 2010
On New Year's Day as I read from my familiar devotional book, Our Daily Bread, I was challenged by the author of the short piece to seek small treasures every day. The treasures, of course, did not have to be material in nature; they would be the small nuggets rather from life's daily walk in 2010. I have always liked "listing" poems since they are simply a series of rather concrete visual images. Therefore, I have chosen to use these for my blog this morning in the form of a free-verse poem.
Quietly Joyful Moments in January
In nature –
Taking a forty minute walk in the newly-fallen three inches of snow,
And seeing the heavily-laden branches of the holly bushes with peeps of
scarlet underneath.
Being struck by the loveliness of the fog-frosted trees atop the Boston
Mountains.
Discovering the North Shore of the Arkansas River, Cook’s Landing Park,
And watching the Canadian geese literally “walk on water.”
Having the North Wind at my back on the second half of a three-mile walk, and appreciating once more that familiar Irish blessing.
Seeing a glimpse of sunlight on the east side of Pinnacle Mountain
on a densely cloudy morning.
Celebrating the return of the birds, especially the robins and cardinals,
that twitter and jump joyously before me on the paved path.
From literature –
Quoting from 2 Timothy 2:6, “The hardworking farmer must partake
first of the crops.”
Hearing the author of Handling Sin, Michael Malone, “My sense of
writing comes from listening.”
Finding a Freudian quote, “We must love or we grow ill.”
From family –
Talking on the telephone New Year’s Day to our Seattle “precious
treasure,” four-year-old grandson Cole.
Watching our eleven-year-old granddaughter, Caitlyn, make a
cherry coffee cake after attending a cooking class.
Watching our six-year-old grandson, Charlie, make his first goal ever
at a basketball game.
Loving the quietly joyful moments of reading together with my
husband of forty-five years on a frigid winter’s day.
Quietly Joyful Moments in January
In nature –
Taking a forty minute walk in the newly-fallen three inches of snow,
And seeing the heavily-laden branches of the holly bushes with peeps of
scarlet underneath.
Being struck by the loveliness of the fog-frosted trees atop the Boston
Mountains.
Discovering the North Shore of the Arkansas River, Cook’s Landing Park,
And watching the Canadian geese literally “walk on water.”
Having the North Wind at my back on the second half of a three-mile walk, and appreciating once more that familiar Irish blessing.
Seeing a glimpse of sunlight on the east side of Pinnacle Mountain
on a densely cloudy morning.
Celebrating the return of the birds, especially the robins and cardinals,
that twitter and jump joyously before me on the paved path.
From literature –
Quoting from 2 Timothy 2:6, “The hardworking farmer must partake
first of the crops.”
Hearing the author of Handling Sin, Michael Malone, “My sense of
writing comes from listening.”
Finding a Freudian quote, “We must love or we grow ill.”
From family –
Talking on the telephone New Year’s Day to our Seattle “precious
treasure,” four-year-old grandson Cole.
Watching our eleven-year-old granddaughter, Caitlyn, make a
cherry coffee cake after attending a cooking class.
Watching our six-year-old grandson, Charlie, make his first goal ever
at a basketball game.
Loving the quietly joyful moments of reading together with my
husband of forty-five years on a frigid winter’s day.
Friday, January 8, 2010
The Evolution of "Isolated Incidents"
As the New Year begins, I search the Internet for the best airline prices for a planned summer trip to Seattle. It is, after all, my husband's 70th birthday that we will be celebrating with our children and grandchildren. My older grandson, Charlie, has not flown before, and I long for him to have a positive experience, yet--since the attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day--I am not sure it will be.
The Administration has gone from describing this incident, as well as several other terrorist incidents before this one, as "isolated" to "war against Al-Qaeda." The other incidents in recent months that were described as "isolated incidents" include the shooting here in our city of Little Rock at a military recruiting station, killing one and wounding one; the shooting at Ft. Hood of a number of military soldiers; the killing of seven CIA agents by a triple agent; and the invasion of a presidential state dinner by three uninvited guests.
The evolution in terminology has most likely been a response to Americans' criticizing an initial lukewarm reaction to these incidents by the administration. After all, Michael Leiter, the Head of the nation's Counter Terrorism program, took his son on a skiing trip the day after the event. Janet Napolitano, Head of Homeland Security, announced on the Sunday programs that the airline "system worked." The next day the President refuted that assessment after an enraged outcry from Americans over her comment.
Yes, it is true that after such incidents Americans are then required to add ever more roadblocks into checking in at airports for their flights. After Richard Reid attempted to bring down an airplane by lighting explosives in his shoes, Americans were required to remove their shoes while checking in. The bringing on of liquids was also forbidden. We are already hearing about what is next: full body scans that leave one no personal privacy at all. Will we also have to remove our underpants and put them in a basket for scanning?
The Administration has gone from describing this incident, as well as several other terrorist incidents before this one, as "isolated" to "war against Al-Qaeda." The other incidents in recent months that were described as "isolated incidents" include the shooting here in our city of Little Rock at a military recruiting station, killing one and wounding one; the shooting at Ft. Hood of a number of military soldiers; the killing of seven CIA agents by a triple agent; and the invasion of a presidential state dinner by three uninvited guests.
The evolution in terminology has most likely been a response to Americans' criticizing an initial lukewarm reaction to these incidents by the administration. After all, Michael Leiter, the Head of the nation's Counter Terrorism program, took his son on a skiing trip the day after the event. Janet Napolitano, Head of Homeland Security, announced on the Sunday programs that the airline "system worked." The next day the President refuted that assessment after an enraged outcry from Americans over her comment.
Yes, it is true that after such incidents Americans are then required to add ever more roadblocks into checking in at airports for their flights. After Richard Reid attempted to bring down an airplane by lighting explosives in his shoes, Americans were required to remove their shoes while checking in. The bringing on of liquids was also forbidden. We are already hearing about what is next: full body scans that leave one no personal privacy at all. Will we also have to remove our underpants and put them in a basket for scanning?
Saturday, December 19, 2009
The Tragedy of Hannah Grace
She was a beautiful New Year's Day baby born in 2008. Her parents named her Hannah Grace, reflecting both a biblical name and God's love. In December of this year, Hannah Grace and her father were found dead in a burned out truck along a road in Sweet Home, Arkansas. What had happened to this child between her birth and her almost two short years of life?
As the investigation into these homicides begins, the back story of Hannah Grace begins sadly to emerge. Evidently, she was placed in protective custody a while back because Hannah's mother allegedly burned her with a cigarette. Pictures from her time in a foster parents' home reveal a seemingly happy, beautiful, and smiling child. Unfortunately, a new social worker was assigned to the case. Hannah was placed back into custody with her father.
Who knows the circumstances that Hannah had to deal with on an everyday basis? What should have been a carefree, happy time for her--playing with her dolls, stuffed animals, and toys could, and probably was, a nightmare. Before she even got a voice, her voice was snuffed out in flames. We can only hope that her death was quick since authorities are not releasing the exact cause of death yet.
Unfortunately, more and more of our nation's children are being abused, neglected, and killed every day. In 2010 on New Year's Day, there will be no birthday celebration for Hannah Grace. What a tragedy . . . .
As the investigation into these homicides begins, the back story of Hannah Grace begins sadly to emerge. Evidently, she was placed in protective custody a while back because Hannah's mother allegedly burned her with a cigarette. Pictures from her time in a foster parents' home reveal a seemingly happy, beautiful, and smiling child. Unfortunately, a new social worker was assigned to the case. Hannah was placed back into custody with her father.
Who knows the circumstances that Hannah had to deal with on an everyday basis? What should have been a carefree, happy time for her--playing with her dolls, stuffed animals, and toys could, and probably was, a nightmare. Before she even got a voice, her voice was snuffed out in flames. We can only hope that her death was quick since authorities are not releasing the exact cause of death yet.
Unfortunately, more and more of our nation's children are being abused, neglected, and killed every day. In 2010 on New Year's Day, there will be no birthday celebration for Hannah Grace. What a tragedy . . . .
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