...for laughin', for cryin', for livin' and for dyin'...

The bones of this post are from about three years ago, back when Duane had just gotten his first new knee. Some things have changed--children's hospitals no longer accept most of the things stitched with so much love, my friend's sister-of-the-heart has passed away, and my shark-catching grandson turned 16 this week. But, like always, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Just as I was inspired by strong women when I wrote this, I am still--never more so than in celebration of the life of one of those women. Rest in Peace, Barbara Bush. Thank you for everything.

I took Duane to have the new-knee staples removed today. The nurse who removed them is beautiful. Blonde, straight white teeth, and a pretty smile. She's been married a year, she and her husband are buying her grandfather's farm, and she wants four children starting as soon as possible. "Is that crazy?" she said, and then answered her own question. "I don't care if it is. Family's important to me. To us."

Night before last, the U.S. Women's Soccer Team brought home the world cup. With skill and dignity and class.

This morning, my daughter-in-law accompanied me when I went walking. We walked faster because she's younger, and she took time to eat raspberries while I huffed and puffed to keep up. I don't think she broke a sweat, but I love her anyway, and it was fun walking with her. I love my sons for a great many things, none more than the daughters-in-law they brought me.

My grandson caught a shark when he went fishing with his dad and brothers off the coast of North Carolina. It wasn't very big, I guess, but sheesh, a shark. His mother--my daughter--said calmly on Facebook that Connor "saved the boat" and provided dinner. Back in Indiana, I'm shrieking, "It's a freaking shark!" His mother undoubtedly looked up the proper way to cook shark.

On June 9, I went to Walmart. It was raining when I went, but, you know, it rained all the time in June. No big deal. But when I left, it was pouring. I'd been waiting inside the entrance doors for about 15 minutes when a pretty young woman offered to help. I said No, I could wait, but she insisted, and she held her umbrella over my cart and me all the way to my car. Which was way across the lot because I don't search out good parking places. (That's one of the things you find yourself doing when you wear a Fitbit.)

I have a friend who goes with a sister-of-her-heart every few weeks while the sister has chemo. They talk and my friend knits and relationships mesh and tighten at the same time as they wait and hope there.

I have other friends who sew and sew and sew for children's hospitals. Blankets, gowns, cancer turbans, stuffed toys that offer comfort and warmth.

There are so many pictures of guys out there with six-pack abs and sexy stubble and maybe some tattoos and soulful expressions. These are the ones who go on the covers of romance novels and that's fine. Though none of my heroes ever really "fit." They wear shirts most of the time and hardly ever look soulful.

But I've realized as I've sat here that those guys on the covers don't motivate me at all. And much as I truly love them, the guys in my books aren't my inspiration, either.

But the heroines, well, that's another story altogether. Those women I listed up here...and others like them? They're my inspiration. They're the ones whose stories I want to tell, the whole laughin', cryin', livin', and dyin' thing.

How about you? Who's your inspiration?

If you're saving it for good, the time is now...

This is from 2010, and I can't say I remember the reason for writing it. I like it, though. I still feel the same way. Yeah, I know change is good, but I also know that no matter how old I get, I'm not good at it. When I think of collections I think of my mother-in-law's teapots--and of her--and my heart breaks a little, but I also remember the fun she had collecting them and the fun we all had helping her find them. They were, like the quilt I talk about below, well loved, and I like having the ones she gave me.

She had collected experiences, I realized, as much as she had collected all these things. - Jenny Moore

I’m not a collector. I’m also not a saver-of-new-things. About the only thing I collect or save up is dust, and I’m told that’s not in demand on the resale market. While I enjoy other people’s collections, I don’t want any of my own. (In a disclaiming aside here, I will admit to having more fabric than I’ll ever get sewn and two more laptops than I actually need, but I’m not collecting them. Exactly.)

To try put my shattered focus into semi-one-place, let me try this again. I don’t save things for “good.” I don’t have Sunday dishes or company towels or candles that have never been lit. The quilts I have from previous generations are on beds, not put away to be passed on. I’ve learned not to maintain a three-size wardrobe, because even if I lose enough weight to wear the smallest size, I don’t like the clothes anymore.
My grandkids’ drawings are not kept neatly in scrapbooks for them to have and laugh over when they are grown; they hang on the refrigerator until the paper is yellow and curled and has footprints on it from hitting the floor too many times. Sometimes they hang there even longer. My first granddaughter’s drawing of a lion is held in place by a business card magnet. Mari was probably five when she drew the lion and she’s now in her third year at Ball State. I might take it down if she drew me another, but then again I might not. I like it where it is, the way it is.

The drawing would probably look much better if it had been kept clean and flat for fifteen years, but I would not have enjoyed it every day. I wouldn’t have taken a fresh mental snapshot of our own little red-haired girl each time I looked at it. I wouldn’t remember the day of her birth so often.

A few years ago, my daughter-in-law Tahne gave us a set of Christmas dishes. My first thought was to use them just during the holidays, and then only when we had a sit-down meal. This way they would not get broken and sometime in the future, the aforementioned granddaughter would inherit them and look at her mother and say, “What am I supposed to do with these? I don’t think Nana’s washed them since 2005.”

Instead, we use the dishes all the way through the holidays and whenever else we feel like it. That none of them are broken yet is both miraculous and maybe a clue that they are meant to be used and enjoyed whenever the mood strikes, not just at Christmas.

Christmas, by the way, is the reason I’m writing this. I know I’m not saying anything original here. I’m pretty sure there are Lifetime movies based on this very premise. But we’ll get and give gifts at Christmas, which is going to be here in about fifteen minutes, as quickly as time’s going these days. Some of those gifts will be complete failures, some will be okay, some will be fun, and some will be keepers. Ones you put up to use at the perfect time and the perfect place.

I hope you don’t—keep them and put them up, I mean. Use them. Wear them out. My other daughter-in-law, Laura, made me a quilt as a reward for quitting smoking nine years ago. It’s queen-size, beautiful, and never gets too far from my bed, but I told my son I thought maybe I should put it away so it wouldn’t be worn out when it came time for Laura’s and his son to inherit it. He said he thought something well-loved might be a better gift than something well-preserved. I didn’t put it away.

Collecting isn’t bad, by any means, but I’m kind of glad I don’t. I’d rather wear the things in my life out by enjoying them. I don’t want the gifts I give or the ones I receive to be keepers. I’d rather they were things remembered than things passed on to the next generation in good shape.

As another side note (remember my little problem with focus), remember what my son said about well loved being better than well preserved? I think that goes for people, too. Even though I’d like to be a whole lot better preserved than what I am, well loved is better. I wish it for all of you. Till next time.

Endings and beginnings

This is from 1992, in the fall, I think, before the youngest left for college. I've learned a lot since then, about redefining myself, about how cool it is having adult children, about how right I was to look at endings as beginnings. I've always said that my favorite time is Now, and it's always been true. Still is. But it's fun to remember other favorite times.

“When mothers talk about the depression of the empty nest, they’re not mourning the passing of all those wet towels on the floor, or the music that numbs your teeth, or even the bottle of capless shampoo dribbling down the shower drain. They’re upset because they’ve gone from supervisor of a child’s life to a spectator. It’s like being the vice president of the United States.” - Erma Bombeck

It's sneaking up on me. People have gone into therapy over it, gotten divorces because of it, lost or gained weight, started or stopped smoking--the list goes on and on. I'm pretty sure some movie star is going to write a bestseller about it, then an expert with initials after his name is going to write another one explaining the deep, hidden meaning of the first one.

Women have bought new wardrobes, changed their hair colors and even their professions because of it. Men have spent more time on golf courses and their jobs and their appearances because of it.

Are you curious yet?

What "it" is, of course, is "Empty Nest Syndrome." I'm not really sure if it should be quotation marked and capitalized like that, but since I'm the one facing it, at almost the same time as my 42nd birthday and in the same time period as wrecking my car and my annual trip to the gynecologist, I think it deserves big letters and quotation marks.

Laura Wray & Jock Flaherty in high school in the early 1990s. Now they've been married 19 years. 

For the first time in more than 22 years, I will not have to do laundry every day, cook enough for an army, or be the voice of authority. I won't have to share my shampoo, my package of razors, the only pieces of my wardrobe that are new, or the full-length mirror in my bedroom. A gallon of milk will last longer than the time it takes to open it, a box of cereal will make it to the cabinet shelf before it is decimated, and no one will eat all the middle pieces out of the brownie pan.

I will be able to take a shower without someone knocking on the bathroom door and saying, "Mom, are you about done?" I can lay a book down and find it in the same place when I go back to it. I can rent a three-Kleenex movie without anyone bagging over it. I can play Nintendo (note from 2017--remember this is 25 years ago, okay?) without anyone coaching me or beating me so badly I have to go to the kitchen and pout. I could, if having two children in college allowed me to have any money, spend it on myself without feeling guilty.

Whoopee.

It will be fun, in a way, my husband and I agree, to have the house to ourselves. We will, for the first time since we've lived here, have the biggest bedroom in the house as soon as our son moves out of it. We'll have better meals because the picky eaters will be being picky at school instead of at home. We'll be able to used the big thick towels instead of the little thin ones that are all that's left when everyone is home. We can both take classes or have dinner out if we like, without worrying about missing an important school function.

The possibilities are endless. Endings are something I'm not to fond of and I avoid them by looking at them as beginnings. That's what I'm going to do now, when the house is too empty and the phone is too quiet and being "Mom" is no long all-encompassing. Letting go of any child is hard, and I think letting go of the last-born is going to be the hardest of all. However, releasing the kid is allowing yourself to begin to know the young adult.

So I've decided I'm going to look forward to all the endless possibilities, to the beginnings. I am. Really.