The display was just inside the entrance of our local Safeway supermarket this morning: a circle of paper shopping bags filled with grocery staples and a sign inviting us to pick one up, pay $10 for it at the check stand and it would be donated to a local needy family.
I was immediately skeptical. We donate regularly to our local food bank. This corporate sponsored charity triggered suspicion: was the merchandise really worth $10? Were we supposed to pay $10 for it and the store -- or the corporation behind the store -- would take a gigantic charitable tax deduction? Would these even go out to needy families -- or would they be recirculated back to that circle for another sucker to come in and drop $10? I walked past the display thinking "What's the scam here anyway?"
I'll have to admit I've been feeling angry, disgusted and dismayed lately about corporate greed and cynicism, about the Koch brothers' pollution of the political scene, about deficit solutions that propose taking from the middle class, poor and elderly while the fat cats will still get the tax deductions for their corporate jets and non-taxpaying, job-outsourcing corporations continue to suck in obscene profits and tax credits.
Lately, I've been going to the grocery store in a dark mood. I go with a list of products produced by the Koch industries and studiously boycott every product on the list. Voting with my checkbook feels somewhat meaningful even if my vote at the polls pales in comparison to corporate influence. This morning, I glanced at my Koch list irritably and then looked behind me.
Bob had picked up one of the paper bags and was putting it in the basket. I scowled. We weren't going to be suckers for some corporate scam!
"The point is that this sack of food will go to some needy family," Bob said. "We've been so blessed in life. How can we not give back? Even though you think it's just another corporate scam, what if this bag of groceries would make a real difference for someone struggling to feed his or her family?"
I thought about it -- and realized that he was right. And I reflected sadly about how my cynicism was beginning to block my altruism. And I thought about about how our hope as citizens and as a nation lies in not losing our humanity and our compassion for each other.
The divisions, the inequities, and the rage at those who are different in any way from us are some of the most frightening aspects of life in the U.S. today. Right wing pundits take aim at unionized teachers, firefighters and police. The younger generations grumble about the greedy geezers who are supposedly living high on the hog with their Social Security riches and Medicare benefits. The less affluent are looking more critically at the lifestyles of the very rich. The financial gap between the rich and the rest of us is widening. Both political parties seem more interested in playing partisan games than in the economic well-being and future of the nation.
But, at least until the next election, that is out of our hands. Or maybe it is forever out of our hands. The question is now what can we as individuals do to counteract the epidemic of selfishness, greed and lack of empathy sweeping the land?
Maybe we can step back from our own cynicism, our own partisan opinions, and find ways to care for each other again. Maybe we can stop focusing on what divides us from others and concentrate, instead, on what we share. Maybe, setting aside fears of economic meltdowns, terrorism and political insanity, we can live with gratitude for today and for what we do have and reach out to help those less fortunate.
It's all a matter of taking that first step away from anger, suspicion and dire expectations -- and opting for empathy and good will. The only time we really have is the present. The only people we can really change? Ourselves. How we view those around us is our own decision. In these tumultuous times, we can make the choice to trust, to give, to love.
I took a deep breath. Then, agreeing with Bob that we, indeed, have been blessed, I made extra space in our shopping cart for that paper bag.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Remembering Aunt Molly on Her Birthday
She was my hero: an independent woman, a professional writer, a happily single person who lived her life exactly as she pleased. She had a wonderful sense of humor, a deeply caring sense of family -- my father was her beloved brother, my mother her best friend and we -- Mike, Tai, and myself -- were her partners in adventure -- whether it was a day at the beach, a weekend in her apartment eating Swiss cheese and semi-frozen boysenberry pie for dinner, a trip to Yosemite or an afternoon listening to her spin fun poetry as we lay on the grass watching the clouds. We always called her our third and best parent.
If she were alive today, this would be the 94th birthday of Elizabeth Catherine McCoy -- Molly to her family -- who was born on July 12, 1917 in Tucson, Arizona. She was a bright and lively child, whose memories of life in Tucson were limited to the smell of the desert after a rain and the comfort of her Daddy's lap as he sang softly to her.
Molly as a baby in Tucson, Az about 1918
After her father died, when Molly was only four, the family moved to Los Angeles so that her older brother Jim could support the family by acting in movies and singing and dancing in vaudeville. Molly did a little film work as an extra now and then, but she mostly concentrated on her studies, skipping three grades in school and graduating from high school when she was 15. She was already a published writer by then, winning national short story and poetry contests. After their mother died, Molly and Jim worked odd jobs to pay their way through UCLA where Molly got both a B.A. and a Master's degree in English literature.
When the U.S. entered World War II, Jim became an Army Air Force pilot, assigned to the ranks of test pilots at Wright Patterson Air Force Base outside Dayton, Ohio. My mother joined him as an emergency services nurse. Molly moved east to be with them -- and got a position as a civilian speech writer for Air Force generals, a job she kept for more than 30 years, transferring back to several different Air Force bases in California when I was in high school.
And, in the meantime, she began a successful sideline of writing television plays for shows like "Climax", "U.S. Steel Hour" and "Alcoa Presents." She wrote mystery short stories for magazines and poetry for literary journals. One of my favorites was one she wrote about the bomb shelter craze during the nuclear scares of the late Fifties and early Sixties (below):
Even when she lived in Ohio, Aunt Molly was a constant presence in our lives -- with regular phone calls, witty letters and much anticipated visits at Christmas and for a month during the summer. We treasured every day we had with her. She did things with us that our parents never had the time or energy to do: we would go to the beach for a glorious day of swimming and sunning. Holding hands, we would dash into the waves with her, running until someone fell down and pulled all the others down, too. We would sit on the sand and she would make up fun poetry, which I memorized on the spot. We would go to plays and musicals. She wrote phony press releases about my idol Cyril Ritchard and made up fun poetry about him. After seeing him at the Metropolitan Opera in "La Perichole", where he made his entrance on a donkey and was the only performer on the program listed without a vocal range beside his name, she wrote a poem that was based on Lewis Carroll's "You Are Old, Father Willam!" and sent it to me.
Lines Largely Inspired by Cyril Ritchard in "La Perichole"
"You are sauve, Cyril Ritchard!" the spectator cried
"You sparkle like finely cut glass.
Do you think, in such case, it is seemly or wise
To Enter Act One on an ass?"
"In my youth," said the actor "I played a long run
On a moth-eaten llama who'd spit
When I flatted a note or butchered a line
Right into the orchestra pit."
"This irascible beast, though I found him a trial
Taught me poise not to say savior faire
So now I can ride on whatever I please
Without turning a vice regal hair."
"You're so charming!" the spectator breathed with a sigh
"So why do you incessantly play
Rogues, scoundrels and cads of such villainous ilk
One should shudder at what you portray?"
"In my youth," said the Thespian, chortling with glee
"I studied the harp and played heroes
But I found that the audience always applauded
The fiendishly fiddling Neroes.
"In the course of the years, with great cunning and skill
I mastered the difficult art
Of the consummate knave
With superb joi de vivre
Who can steal both the purse and the heart!"
"You sing like a bird," mused the spectator. "Yes...
Your notes are both firm and full-blown.
But pray tell me your range -- are you tenor or bass
Or a shading of baritone?"
"In my youth," blared the Player, sustaining a note
Til the plaster dropped off of the ceiling.
"I knew an old diva as deaf as a post
Addicted to drinking Darjeeling.
"She taught me to sing by striking the pitch
On the top of my head with her cane.
And after two lessons, I sang like a lark
And reeled like a one-legged crane.
"She inculcated rhythm by beating the tune
In my face with an old ivory fan.
You may question my range
But in volume and verve,
Cyril Ritchard need yield to no man."
"You dance like Nijinsky!" the Spectator gushed,
"Combining both grace and abandon
So one is never sure what part of the stage -- or the stalls --
You are likely to land on!"
"In my youth," gasped the actor, performing jettes
Like a grasshopper far flown in wine.
"I learned my first steps at the Brisbane Ballet
From a kangaroo named Clementine.
"She was gifted and droll and, perhaps, on the whole
As patient as any a tutor.
But her temper was worse than an old Irish curse
When one's pas de deux did not suit her.
"One flip of her tail, would send me full sail
Well into General Admission.
So I learned to be quick as a fox with a chick
And as agile as nuclear fission."
"You're fantastic!" The Spectator grasped his lapels
"Yet you seldom come out to the West!
How can you inflict such a dearth of Ritchard
On an area otherwise blessed?"
"I have answered four questions and that is enough!"
Stormed the Actor, magenta with rage.
"Unhand my lapel and undarken my door...
Be off or I'll kick you down stage!"
Continuing to honor my tween-crush on Mr. Ritchard, she gave me two boxed sets of his readings of "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" when I was 12. And she told me that she thought I had chosen my idol well.
Many years later, in 1981, I wrote down, from memory, the poem above and gave it to her with several others as a Christmas surprise. The photo below shows her rediscovering her own fun poetry.
Rediscovering her fun poetry - Christmas 1981
But life with Aunt Molly wasn't always fun and laughter. Sometimes she taught us hard and necessary lessons.
One day, when I was five or six, on an expedition to Vroman's bookstore in Pasadena -- to this day one of my favorite places in the world -- we were driving through a predominently African-American neighborhood when I pointed out a man walking along the sidewalk.
"Hey, Aunt Molly, look!" I cried, pointing. "There's a nigger!"
In an instant, she pulled the car over to the curb, shut off the ignition and turned to look at me, her face burning with rage. Her voice was quiet and intense. "Don't you ever use that word again, do you hear me? That is a terrible word. It is full of hate and ignorance. Don't ever say it. Don't even think it! People of all colors deserve the same respect. Don't let me ever hear you say that again!"
I shrank back against the window, my throat aching, blinking back tears. "But Father says it all the time! That's all he ever calls black people," I whimpered.
"Your father is wrong," she said, her eyes never leaving mine. "You know I love your father very, very much. But he's wrong about this. And it's just as wrong when you say it. So promise me..."
"I promise."
"I love you, my little LYC..." she said, wiping my tears as she stroked my face tenderly. "I want you to grow up to be a good person."
When I was small, I would ask her how much she loved me and she would reply "I love you this much, up to the sky and beyond!"
She had pet names for all of us. I was LYC (or Little Yellow Chicken), a nickname bestowed when I was toddler with light hair, a piping voice and a touch of shyness. Mike was "Kool Kat" or "Man" because he was fascinated by beatniks and, in the midst of our chaotic family environment, aspired to extreme coolness. And Tai was "TF" or "Tiny Fungus" because she tended to cling to Aunt Molly relentlessly whenever she was around. Our nicknames persisted into our middle age.
And she had her own way of dealing with our teenage surliness and angst. My brief form of teen rebellion, when I was 13, was to become aggressively religious. I went to Mass every day. I wore a jangling clot of religious medals and scapulars around my neck. I prayed with my arms in the form of a cross in the backyard at sunset. And I had an annoying habit of quoting the Bible constantly. My parents were irritated, but decided this was better than sex, drugs or rock n roll. Not Aunt Molly.
One Saturday, during our weekly shopping excursion to Pasadena, Aunt Molly was trying on shoes at Robinson's. "What do you think of these?" she asked, extending her foot in my direction.
I heaved a put-upon adolescent sigh and said "Vanity of vanities and all is vanity, save loving God and serving Him alone."
There was a beat as she looked at me for a silent moment and then said "Am I going to have to take you home because you're being such an incredible pain in the ass? Or are we going to have a nice lunch after this?"
"We're going to have a nice lunch!" I said quickly, with a smile. And I never quoted the Bible to her again.
Aunt Molly - pictured in the late Fifties
But it was Aunt Molly, soon after that, who agreed not only to drive me in to Hollywood to see the movie "The Nun's Story" but also to sit through it without complaint. It was Aunt Molly who encouraged me to dress with style. It was Aunt Molly who taught me to drive in her exceedingly cool, brand new 1962 Impala. It was Aunt Molly who taught me my most important lesson about writing.
"Do you think this is good?" I asked her one day when I was 11 or 12, extending a school essay in her direction.
She handed it back to me. "What do you think?" she asked. "Do you think it's good?"
I gaped at her, open-mouthed and mumbled "I don't know..."
"You need to know," she said. "Don't ever depend on anyone else to tell you whether something you write is good. You have to know it yourself, in here." She touched her heart and then her head.
Still, after my first quarter at Northwestern, under the incomparable eye of Elizabeth Swayne, my first and best writing teacher there, Aunt Molly looked stunned as she read my final paper for the class. "My God," she said quietly. "This is good....really good! What did she DO in this class? I can't believe how she cleaned up your writing...it's wonderful!" And she embraced me.
One of Aunt Molly's greatest lessons to me -- to all of us -- was embracing life. She delighted in every aspect of her life -- from the garden she planted in her first and only house to family gatherings to her friends. She loved a good party and was no stranger to romance. "But the men of my generation don't appeal to me," she confided one day. "They want to be waited on. They want a woman to serve them. No thanks! My life is my own -- and I love it!"
Family gatherings revolved around our beloved Aunt Molly
She so loved life that, even in her eighties, she couldn't imagine dying. "I haven't decided when I would want to die," she told me one day as we dove into fresh strawberry pie at her favorite local restaurant. "I love the spring and flowers and I couldn't go and leave my garden untended. And summer is just about my favorite time -- with supper on the patio and a day at the beach. I couldn't miss summer. And fall is so great, with the leaves so colorful and Halloween and Thanksgiving and the promise of Christmas. Oh, I couldn't miss Christmas! That's my favorite time of year. I would have to stick around for Christmas!"
Molly, Mike, Bob and me shortly before Molly's death
And so she did. We had a wonderful family Christmas celebration in 2003. Mike picked her up at her home and they stopped for a tour of Vroman's on their way to my house. We sang carols and laughed and exchanged funny gifts and enjoyed a non-traditional Christmas dinner of spaghetti because she had asked for it.
Then Bob and I drove her the 100 miles home to Redlands. As we visited briefly at her place, she looked at me suddenly and said quietly "If I get really sick, will you please arrange in home care so I can stay at home? I love my home and I never want to leave it." I put my arms around her, suddenly noticing that she felt fragile, that I was taller than she.
"I promise," I said, kissing her and quietly wishing I could hold her in my arms forever.
It was an easy promise to keep. On January 5, 2004, she dressed carefully for a belated holiday lunch with her good friend Magda, who lived around the corner. While waiting for Magda to pick her up, she sat down in her favorite chair to do that day's New York Times crossword puzzle. When Magda arrived and got no answer to her knock on the door, she let herself in with Molly's hidden key. At first, she thought Molly had fallen asleep. Then she touched her hand and felt the coolness of death.
Later, going through Aunt Molly's belongings, I found notations in her desk diary that she had had episodes of angina in the middle of the night throughout the month of December 2003. Her heart was failing and she knew it, but never said a word to us. She willed herself to be with us for one more holiday season and then, when the season was nearly over, she slipped away. We noticed that she had nearly finished that New York Times crossword puzzle before she died -- and she was getting everything right. It was the perfect way for her to leave this life.
We buried her ashes in a grave beside her mother's, the day before Mother's Day in 2004. With tears and laughter, we read some of her poetry and talked about how much we loved her.
That love is still the topic of conversation whenever Mike or Tai or Bob and I talk of Aunt Molly. And sometimes it just hits me -- with the hint of a warm summer breeze or the smell of the desert after a rain or sitting on a beach and remembering our runs into the waves. Suddenly, just for a moment, I'm a wistful child again. And I say quietly "I love you, too, Aunt Molly...up to the sky and beyond!"
If she were alive today, this would be the 94th birthday of Elizabeth Catherine McCoy -- Molly to her family -- who was born on July 12, 1917 in Tucson, Arizona. She was a bright and lively child, whose memories of life in Tucson were limited to the smell of the desert after a rain and the comfort of her Daddy's lap as he sang softly to her.
After her father died, when Molly was only four, the family moved to Los Angeles so that her older brother Jim could support the family by acting in movies and singing and dancing in vaudeville. Molly did a little film work as an extra now and then, but she mostly concentrated on her studies, skipping three grades in school and graduating from high school when she was 15. She was already a published writer by then, winning national short story and poetry contests. After their mother died, Molly and Jim worked odd jobs to pay their way through UCLA where Molly got both a B.A. and a Master's degree in English literature.
When the U.S. entered World War II, Jim became an Army Air Force pilot, assigned to the ranks of test pilots at Wright Patterson Air Force Base outside Dayton, Ohio. My mother joined him as an emergency services nurse. Molly moved east to be with them -- and got a position as a civilian speech writer for Air Force generals, a job she kept for more than 30 years, transferring back to several different Air Force bases in California when I was in high school.
And, in the meantime, she began a successful sideline of writing television plays for shows like "Climax", "U.S. Steel Hour" and "Alcoa Presents." She wrote mystery short stories for magazines and poetry for literary journals. One of my favorites was one she wrote about the bomb shelter craze during the nuclear scares of the late Fifties and early Sixties (below):
Even when she lived in Ohio, Aunt Molly was a constant presence in our lives -- with regular phone calls, witty letters and much anticipated visits at Christmas and for a month during the summer. We treasured every day we had with her. She did things with us that our parents never had the time or energy to do: we would go to the beach for a glorious day of swimming and sunning. Holding hands, we would dash into the waves with her, running until someone fell down and pulled all the others down, too. We would sit on the sand and she would make up fun poetry, which I memorized on the spot. We would go to plays and musicals. She wrote phony press releases about my idol Cyril Ritchard and made up fun poetry about him. After seeing him at the Metropolitan Opera in "La Perichole", where he made his entrance on a donkey and was the only performer on the program listed without a vocal range beside his name, she wrote a poem that was based on Lewis Carroll's "You Are Old, Father Willam!" and sent it to me.
Lines Largely Inspired by Cyril Ritchard in "La Perichole"
"You are sauve, Cyril Ritchard!" the spectator cried
"You sparkle like finely cut glass.
Do you think, in such case, it is seemly or wise
To Enter Act One on an ass?"
"In my youth," said the actor "I played a long run
On a moth-eaten llama who'd spit
When I flatted a note or butchered a line
Right into the orchestra pit."
"This irascible beast, though I found him a trial
Taught me poise not to say savior faire
So now I can ride on whatever I please
Without turning a vice regal hair."
"You're so charming!" the spectator breathed with a sigh
"So why do you incessantly play
Rogues, scoundrels and cads of such villainous ilk
One should shudder at what you portray?"
"In my youth," said the Thespian, chortling with glee
"I studied the harp and played heroes
But I found that the audience always applauded
The fiendishly fiddling Neroes.
"In the course of the years, with great cunning and skill
I mastered the difficult art
Of the consummate knave
With superb joi de vivre
Who can steal both the purse and the heart!"
"You sing like a bird," mused the spectator. "Yes...
Your notes are both firm and full-blown.
But pray tell me your range -- are you tenor or bass
Or a shading of baritone?"
"In my youth," blared the Player, sustaining a note
Til the plaster dropped off of the ceiling.
"I knew an old diva as deaf as a post
Addicted to drinking Darjeeling.
"She taught me to sing by striking the pitch
On the top of my head with her cane.
And after two lessons, I sang like a lark
And reeled like a one-legged crane.
"She inculcated rhythm by beating the tune
In my face with an old ivory fan.
You may question my range
But in volume and verve,
Cyril Ritchard need yield to no man."
"You dance like Nijinsky!" the Spectator gushed,
"Combining both grace and abandon
So one is never sure what part of the stage -- or the stalls --
You are likely to land on!"
"In my youth," gasped the actor, performing jettes
Like a grasshopper far flown in wine.
"I learned my first steps at the Brisbane Ballet
From a kangaroo named Clementine.
"She was gifted and droll and, perhaps, on the whole
As patient as any a tutor.
But her temper was worse than an old Irish curse
When one's pas de deux did not suit her.
"One flip of her tail, would send me full sail
Well into General Admission.
So I learned to be quick as a fox with a chick
And as agile as nuclear fission."
"You're fantastic!" The Spectator grasped his lapels
"Yet you seldom come out to the West!
How can you inflict such a dearth of Ritchard
On an area otherwise blessed?"
"I have answered four questions and that is enough!"
Stormed the Actor, magenta with rage.
"Unhand my lapel and undarken my door...
Be off or I'll kick you down stage!"
Continuing to honor my tween-crush on Mr. Ritchard, she gave me two boxed sets of his readings of "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" when I was 12. And she told me that she thought I had chosen my idol well.
Many years later, in 1981, I wrote down, from memory, the poem above and gave it to her with several others as a Christmas surprise. The photo below shows her rediscovering her own fun poetry.
But life with Aunt Molly wasn't always fun and laughter. Sometimes she taught us hard and necessary lessons.
One day, when I was five or six, on an expedition to Vroman's bookstore in Pasadena -- to this day one of my favorite places in the world -- we were driving through a predominently African-American neighborhood when I pointed out a man walking along the sidewalk.
"Hey, Aunt Molly, look!" I cried, pointing. "There's a nigger!"
In an instant, she pulled the car over to the curb, shut off the ignition and turned to look at me, her face burning with rage. Her voice was quiet and intense. "Don't you ever use that word again, do you hear me? That is a terrible word. It is full of hate and ignorance. Don't ever say it. Don't even think it! People of all colors deserve the same respect. Don't let me ever hear you say that again!"
I shrank back against the window, my throat aching, blinking back tears. "But Father says it all the time! That's all he ever calls black people," I whimpered.
"Your father is wrong," she said, her eyes never leaving mine. "You know I love your father very, very much. But he's wrong about this. And it's just as wrong when you say it. So promise me..."
"I promise."
"I love you, my little LYC..." she said, wiping my tears as she stroked my face tenderly. "I want you to grow up to be a good person."
When I was small, I would ask her how much she loved me and she would reply "I love you this much, up to the sky and beyond!"
She had pet names for all of us. I was LYC (or Little Yellow Chicken), a nickname bestowed when I was toddler with light hair, a piping voice and a touch of shyness. Mike was "Kool Kat" or "Man" because he was fascinated by beatniks and, in the midst of our chaotic family environment, aspired to extreme coolness. And Tai was "TF" or "Tiny Fungus" because she tended to cling to Aunt Molly relentlessly whenever she was around. Our nicknames persisted into our middle age.
And she had her own way of dealing with our teenage surliness and angst. My brief form of teen rebellion, when I was 13, was to become aggressively religious. I went to Mass every day. I wore a jangling clot of religious medals and scapulars around my neck. I prayed with my arms in the form of a cross in the backyard at sunset. And I had an annoying habit of quoting the Bible constantly. My parents were irritated, but decided this was better than sex, drugs or rock n roll. Not Aunt Molly.
One Saturday, during our weekly shopping excursion to Pasadena, Aunt Molly was trying on shoes at Robinson's. "What do you think of these?" she asked, extending her foot in my direction.
I heaved a put-upon adolescent sigh and said "Vanity of vanities and all is vanity, save loving God and serving Him alone."
There was a beat as she looked at me for a silent moment and then said "Am I going to have to take you home because you're being such an incredible pain in the ass? Or are we going to have a nice lunch after this?"
"We're going to have a nice lunch!" I said quickly, with a smile. And I never quoted the Bible to her again.
But it was Aunt Molly, soon after that, who agreed not only to drive me in to Hollywood to see the movie "The Nun's Story" but also to sit through it without complaint. It was Aunt Molly who encouraged me to dress with style. It was Aunt Molly who taught me to drive in her exceedingly cool, brand new 1962 Impala. It was Aunt Molly who taught me my most important lesson about writing.
"Do you think this is good?" I asked her one day when I was 11 or 12, extending a school essay in her direction.
She handed it back to me. "What do you think?" she asked. "Do you think it's good?"
I gaped at her, open-mouthed and mumbled "I don't know..."
"You need to know," she said. "Don't ever depend on anyone else to tell you whether something you write is good. You have to know it yourself, in here." She touched her heart and then her head.
Still, after my first quarter at Northwestern, under the incomparable eye of Elizabeth Swayne, my first and best writing teacher there, Aunt Molly looked stunned as she read my final paper for the class. "My God," she said quietly. "This is good....really good! What did she DO in this class? I can't believe how she cleaned up your writing...it's wonderful!" And she embraced me.
One of Aunt Molly's greatest lessons to me -- to all of us -- was embracing life. She delighted in every aspect of her life -- from the garden she planted in her first and only house to family gatherings to her friends. She loved a good party and was no stranger to romance. "But the men of my generation don't appeal to me," she confided one day. "They want to be waited on. They want a woman to serve them. No thanks! My life is my own -- and I love it!"
She so loved life that, even in her eighties, she couldn't imagine dying. "I haven't decided when I would want to die," she told me one day as we dove into fresh strawberry pie at her favorite local restaurant. "I love the spring and flowers and I couldn't go and leave my garden untended. And summer is just about my favorite time -- with supper on the patio and a day at the beach. I couldn't miss summer. And fall is so great, with the leaves so colorful and Halloween and Thanksgiving and the promise of Christmas. Oh, I couldn't miss Christmas! That's my favorite time of year. I would have to stick around for Christmas!"
And so she did. We had a wonderful family Christmas celebration in 2003. Mike picked her up at her home and they stopped for a tour of Vroman's on their way to my house. We sang carols and laughed and exchanged funny gifts and enjoyed a non-traditional Christmas dinner of spaghetti because she had asked for it.
Then Bob and I drove her the 100 miles home to Redlands. As we visited briefly at her place, she looked at me suddenly and said quietly "If I get really sick, will you please arrange in home care so I can stay at home? I love my home and I never want to leave it." I put my arms around her, suddenly noticing that she felt fragile, that I was taller than she.
"I promise," I said, kissing her and quietly wishing I could hold her in my arms forever.
It was an easy promise to keep. On January 5, 2004, she dressed carefully for a belated holiday lunch with her good friend Magda, who lived around the corner. While waiting for Magda to pick her up, she sat down in her favorite chair to do that day's New York Times crossword puzzle. When Magda arrived and got no answer to her knock on the door, she let herself in with Molly's hidden key. At first, she thought Molly had fallen asleep. Then she touched her hand and felt the coolness of death.
Later, going through Aunt Molly's belongings, I found notations in her desk diary that she had had episodes of angina in the middle of the night throughout the month of December 2003. Her heart was failing and she knew it, but never said a word to us. She willed herself to be with us for one more holiday season and then, when the season was nearly over, she slipped away. We noticed that she had nearly finished that New York Times crossword puzzle before she died -- and she was getting everything right. It was the perfect way for her to leave this life.
We buried her ashes in a grave beside her mother's, the day before Mother's Day in 2004. With tears and laughter, we read some of her poetry and talked about how much we loved her.
That love is still the topic of conversation whenever Mike or Tai or Bob and I talk of Aunt Molly. And sometimes it just hits me -- with the hint of a warm summer breeze or the smell of the desert after a rain or sitting on a beach and remembering our runs into the waves. Suddenly, just for a moment, I'm a wistful child again. And I say quietly "I love you, too, Aunt Molly...up to the sky and beyond!"
Monday, July 11, 2011
The Worlds We Knew
Women born in and around the Baby Boom generation -- and that accounts for a lot of us -- grew up in one world, came of age in another and are growing older in yet another. It has been a exhilarating, frustrating, joyous and arduous process.
We grew up in a world of limited options and expectations for women.
Growing up in the Fifties, I saw very few women in our neighborhood working outside their homes, except for Yvonne, the woman across the street, the veteran of several divorces, who worked at the local Fosters Freeze. All of the women had worked through the Depression and the war years -- my mother as a nurse, an American Airlines flight attendant and, finally, as an emergency services nurse who rode the ambulance out to the runways of the testing facilities at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to pick up casualties of plane crashes. Liz had been a night club pianist. Eleanor was a private secretary to a aircraft company executive. Now they were all wives and stay-at-home moms and life wasn't always as portrayed in "Leave It to Beaver."
Sure, they loved their husbands. They loved their kids. They kept life humming along for their families in their cozy suburban homes. But, for some, there was something amiss. I overhead their complaints when my mother and the neighbor women got together for coffee at our house many mornings. They were bored and felt unappreciated and stuck. Some of them drank too much. Some of them smoked one cigarette after another. Some, like my mother, ate out of frustration. I listened and promised myself that this would not be my life.
It seemed that as invisible as they felt at times, stay-at-home wives and mothers were blamed for everything -- from Vance Packard's best-selling indictment of "Mom-ism" and his dire observation that the nation's mothers were raising "a generation of vipers" to the dreaded "ring-around-the-collar" of detergent commercial fame. In the commercials, the man was never embarrassed when others noticed his filthy collar. It was the wife who cringed, because, of course, it was her fault that his collar was stained -- or even that he didn't keep his neck clean. It seemed that our mothers just couldn't win.
Even in school, the nuns would tell us our options were to grow up to be good Catholic wives and mothers or, even better, to be a nun. I started sending for convent literature when I was 12.
About that time, dreaming of independence, I used to play a fantasy game: picking up the newspaper want ads and, pretending that I was twentysomething, would spend an hour, just for fun, pretending to look for a job, an apartment and a car, circling the ads that looked most promising. But what was frustrating was that all of the most interesting jobs came under the heading "Help Wanted: Men". Just about all I could find under "Help Wanted: Women" were jobs that were for "Gal Friday!" and "Super Secretary!" and "Easy, Fun Job!" None of those fired my imagination, but I'd pick the best of the worst and go on to find my apartment and car.
Life started changing in college and graduate school. I went to Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism -- and women were taken seriously, to a point. We were encouraged to major in Magazine -- the worst paying, most female dominated branch of journalism at that time. Women were actively discouraged from a Broadcast Journalism major because, the dean told us, "We don't want to train you for a field where you won't be able to get a job. Women just aren't being hired for broadcast, especially for on-camera jobs." It was true. My classmate and friend Marie Traina stubbornly insisted on a Broadcast major. After graduation, she was unable to find a broadcasting job -- on camera or off -- and ended up working as a newspaper reporter, winning an award her first year at the paper. The beginning of new opportunities for women as television reporters and anchors came about five years after my class graduated.
But at least there was a nod toward competent women in our class: the few female instructors in the program inspired us. And when an honors seminar was established at the end of freshman year, it was equally divided between men and women. And the women very much held their own in discussions and achievements in school and in life beyond.
When we, the leading edge of the Baby Boomers, graduated from college in the late Sixties, opportunities were opening at a rate that would have astonished our mothers back in the day. But there were still constraints starting out.
In my case, magazine jobs paid so horribly that the expectation was, at least in New York, that indulgent parents would help support their daughters until they married. In Los Angeles, where I started my magazine career, there was only one consumer magazine publishing group that had editiorial offices in L.A. The company published a full list of major magazines targeted at men -- Motor Trend, Hot Rod, Photographic, Guns and Ammo -- and one magazine aimed at a female audience - 'TEEN. It was no secret that the female editors of 'TEEN made less money than the secretaries of the editors of the other magazines. Company honchos told the EEOC that 'TEEN was a separate enterprise, after all. And, besides, if any of us didn't like working for low wages, we could just leave. The publisher could easily find eager young college grads who would work for those wages.
Because I was the first young editor hired with a Master's degree in journalism from a prestigious school, the publisher offered me a better deal: instead of making $350 a month, I would be starting at $400. Even in 1968 that was a ridiculously low wage. However, I jumped at the opportunity -- and long term, it was an excellent decision. The experience and exposure I would gain in my nine years at 'TEEN would set the tone and provide the groundwork for the rest of my career.
But before I could start, I -- and all of the other female staffers -- had to endure a grilling from the corporation's Human Resources Director. He was tall, skinny, pallid and socially awkward. He read from a list of prepared questions on a tattered index card -- and one of the questions made my jaw drop: "What form of birth control are you using?"
I stared at him and stammered "Nothing! I mean, I'm a virgin! I don't even have a boyfriend."
He looked over his glasses at me. "You're 23 years old."
I nodded, feeling ashamed and already like a failure. "I know," I said. "Guys don't like me. This guy in college dumped me because I wanted a career and he wanted a wife. I don't know if I'll ever get married." I could feel my cheeks burning.
"Well," he said. "When we hire girls for editorial positions, we want to make sure they're going to stay at least a year or two. We don't want anyone getting pregnant and leaving after six months."
I stared down at my hands, humiliated. "I won't," I whispered. "I promise I won't."
This unhappy rite of passage at the company persisted into the early Seventies. As time went on, female applicants increasingly confronted him about the question, complaining that it felt intrusive. But it took a British journalist named Ellen to bring an end to it forever. A well-known writer and television host in England, with a quick wit and short temper, Ellen stared at him when he asked her the question. Silence.
He asked once more: "What form of birth control do you use?"
She looked him in the eye and answered "Fellatio!"
He never asked the question again.
We came of age at a time when women had more options than ever before.
Times were changing, after all, in the Seventies as feminism captured the imagination of a significant segment of Baby Boomer women. Legislative changes opened more doors. Workplaces began to change. Want ads no longer labeled jobs male or female only.
We were evolving from the constraints we had known growing up to the heady advances of the Seventies and Eighties when we dared to dream, walked the halls in our power suits and learned to multi-task. We were coming of age in an era where we believed we could have it all: a career, a marriage, children -- just like men.
Only we found out that we couldn't really, at least not all at the same time.
The limitations were evident to me in the personal histories of those ten men and women in the honors seminar at Northwestern: the five men all went on to have high profile careers, enduring marriages and multiple children. Of the five women, one chose to forgo a career for marriage and children. The remaining four of us opted for high profile careers. Only one of the four was ever a mother -- and her only child was born when she was in her early forties and well established.
Overall, women's lives weren't always in such stark contrast to men's, but there were concessions to the demands of child-raising with years of career-building put on hold or concessions to work with a generation of latch-key kids or various combinations over time. There was the Mommy Track. There were media-fueled "Mommy Wars" and glass ceilings that began to seem unbreakable. We were the most educated and ambitious generation of women ever, coming of age in an era of growing opportunities for women and concurrent tough choices. Having it all was an incredible challenge.
Perhaps not by accident, inflation and growing wage stagnation made it more difficult for families to enjoy a middle class lifestyle on one salary. Increasingly, women had to work. For those of us with careers we loved, the situation wasn't as difficult -- except for women who faced the prospect of leaving young babies or small children in the care of another. For women who would have preferred to stay home with their children, leaving them to go to work could be agonizing. And, in the Eighties and Nineties, the stay-at-home-with-the-children Mom whom some of us had foolishly scorned as we grew up in the Fifties became an envied lifestyle -- either the option of a parent who was affluent enough not to have to work outside the home or one who, with a partner, had made major financial sacrifices to give the children full-time nurturing. And we realized, over time, that there were no easy choices or answers in our quest to have it all. There were times when some of us looked back with a certain nostalgia on the simple certainty of our mothers' lives.
We're growing older in an increasingly uncertain world.
We're growing older in a rapidly changing world of increased uncertainty -- uncertainty about the stability of our careers and earning futures, uncertainty about the possibility or stability of our retirement as controversy swirls about cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Some Boomers are considering the possibility that they will need to work until they are 70 or beyond --or, perhaps, never retire. At the same time, unemployment is disastrously high and particularly problematic for those in their forties, fifties or early sixties who face particularly steep odds as they search for new jobs.
We're watching and worrying as younger generations face challenges many of us didn't have: the prohibitive cost of college, the crushing burden of student loans, fewer jobs, the prevalence of no-pay or low-pay internships, the daunting cost of getting launched into an independent life.
We're watching as both political parties appear to put the interests of corporations and Wall Street, of political ambitions and strategies above the good of the nation and citizens in the economic lower 98%.
And we wonder what's to become of our country and of us.
We're learning, in a time of diminishing prospects and expectations, to find pleasure where we can, to live in the moment and cherish each day. In an age where simplification and frugality have become the new standard, we're learning to live with no-frills and are happier than we had ever imagined on less than we planned.
There are times, even now, when we look back with a hint of nostalgia at the simple certainty of our mothers' lives in the Fifties. And then we remember their frustration and paltry options. There are times when we look back at our own certainty, ambition and optimism in those heady, busy coming of age years -- and then we remember the difficult, sometimes heart-rending choices that had to be made. And, increasingly, there are times when we are grateful for our lives today -- times when we cherish the opportunity to look back on our lives and decide what has mattered most, times when we appreciate anew the value of family, friendships and enduring love.
We grew up in a world of limited options and expectations for women.
Growing up in the Fifties, I saw very few women in our neighborhood working outside their homes, except for Yvonne, the woman across the street, the veteran of several divorces, who worked at the local Fosters Freeze. All of the women had worked through the Depression and the war years -- my mother as a nurse, an American Airlines flight attendant and, finally, as an emergency services nurse who rode the ambulance out to the runways of the testing facilities at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to pick up casualties of plane crashes. Liz had been a night club pianist. Eleanor was a private secretary to a aircraft company executive. Now they were all wives and stay-at-home moms and life wasn't always as portrayed in "Leave It to Beaver."
Sure, they loved their husbands. They loved their kids. They kept life humming along for their families in their cozy suburban homes. But, for some, there was something amiss. I overhead their complaints when my mother and the neighbor women got together for coffee at our house many mornings. They were bored and felt unappreciated and stuck. Some of them drank too much. Some of them smoked one cigarette after another. Some, like my mother, ate out of frustration. I listened and promised myself that this would not be my life.
It seemed that as invisible as they felt at times, stay-at-home wives and mothers were blamed for everything -- from Vance Packard's best-selling indictment of "Mom-ism" and his dire observation that the nation's mothers were raising "a generation of vipers" to the dreaded "ring-around-the-collar" of detergent commercial fame. In the commercials, the man was never embarrassed when others noticed his filthy collar. It was the wife who cringed, because, of course, it was her fault that his collar was stained -- or even that he didn't keep his neck clean. It seemed that our mothers just couldn't win.
Even in school, the nuns would tell us our options were to grow up to be good Catholic wives and mothers or, even better, to be a nun. I started sending for convent literature when I was 12.
About that time, dreaming of independence, I used to play a fantasy game: picking up the newspaper want ads and, pretending that I was twentysomething, would spend an hour, just for fun, pretending to look for a job, an apartment and a car, circling the ads that looked most promising. But what was frustrating was that all of the most interesting jobs came under the heading "Help Wanted: Men". Just about all I could find under "Help Wanted: Women" were jobs that were for "Gal Friday!" and "Super Secretary!" and "Easy, Fun Job!" None of those fired my imagination, but I'd pick the best of the worst and go on to find my apartment and car.
Life started changing in college and graduate school. I went to Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism -- and women were taken seriously, to a point. We were encouraged to major in Magazine -- the worst paying, most female dominated branch of journalism at that time. Women were actively discouraged from a Broadcast Journalism major because, the dean told us, "We don't want to train you for a field where you won't be able to get a job. Women just aren't being hired for broadcast, especially for on-camera jobs." It was true. My classmate and friend Marie Traina stubbornly insisted on a Broadcast major. After graduation, she was unable to find a broadcasting job -- on camera or off -- and ended up working as a newspaper reporter, winning an award her first year at the paper. The beginning of new opportunities for women as television reporters and anchors came about five years after my class graduated.
But at least there was a nod toward competent women in our class: the few female instructors in the program inspired us. And when an honors seminar was established at the end of freshman year, it was equally divided between men and women. And the women very much held their own in discussions and achievements in school and in life beyond.
When we, the leading edge of the Baby Boomers, graduated from college in the late Sixties, opportunities were opening at a rate that would have astonished our mothers back in the day. But there were still constraints starting out.
In my case, magazine jobs paid so horribly that the expectation was, at least in New York, that indulgent parents would help support their daughters until they married. In Los Angeles, where I started my magazine career, there was only one consumer magazine publishing group that had editiorial offices in L.A. The company published a full list of major magazines targeted at men -- Motor Trend, Hot Rod, Photographic, Guns and Ammo -- and one magazine aimed at a female audience - 'TEEN. It was no secret that the female editors of 'TEEN made less money than the secretaries of the editors of the other magazines. Company honchos told the EEOC that 'TEEN was a separate enterprise, after all. And, besides, if any of us didn't like working for low wages, we could just leave. The publisher could easily find eager young college grads who would work for those wages.
Because I was the first young editor hired with a Master's degree in journalism from a prestigious school, the publisher offered me a better deal: instead of making $350 a month, I would be starting at $400. Even in 1968 that was a ridiculously low wage. However, I jumped at the opportunity -- and long term, it was an excellent decision. The experience and exposure I would gain in my nine years at 'TEEN would set the tone and provide the groundwork for the rest of my career.
But before I could start, I -- and all of the other female staffers -- had to endure a grilling from the corporation's Human Resources Director. He was tall, skinny, pallid and socially awkward. He read from a list of prepared questions on a tattered index card -- and one of the questions made my jaw drop: "What form of birth control are you using?"
I stared at him and stammered "Nothing! I mean, I'm a virgin! I don't even have a boyfriend."
He looked over his glasses at me. "You're 23 years old."
I nodded, feeling ashamed and already like a failure. "I know," I said. "Guys don't like me. This guy in college dumped me because I wanted a career and he wanted a wife. I don't know if I'll ever get married." I could feel my cheeks burning.
"Well," he said. "When we hire girls for editorial positions, we want to make sure they're going to stay at least a year or two. We don't want anyone getting pregnant and leaving after six months."
I stared down at my hands, humiliated. "I won't," I whispered. "I promise I won't."
This unhappy rite of passage at the company persisted into the early Seventies. As time went on, female applicants increasingly confronted him about the question, complaining that it felt intrusive. But it took a British journalist named Ellen to bring an end to it forever. A well-known writer and television host in England, with a quick wit and short temper, Ellen stared at him when he asked her the question. Silence.
He asked once more: "What form of birth control do you use?"
She looked him in the eye and answered "Fellatio!"
He never asked the question again.
We came of age at a time when women had more options than ever before.
Times were changing, after all, in the Seventies as feminism captured the imagination of a significant segment of Baby Boomer women. Legislative changes opened more doors. Workplaces began to change. Want ads no longer labeled jobs male or female only.
We were evolving from the constraints we had known growing up to the heady advances of the Seventies and Eighties when we dared to dream, walked the halls in our power suits and learned to multi-task. We were coming of age in an era where we believed we could have it all: a career, a marriage, children -- just like men.
Only we found out that we couldn't really, at least not all at the same time.
The limitations were evident to me in the personal histories of those ten men and women in the honors seminar at Northwestern: the five men all went on to have high profile careers, enduring marriages and multiple children. Of the five women, one chose to forgo a career for marriage and children. The remaining four of us opted for high profile careers. Only one of the four was ever a mother -- and her only child was born when she was in her early forties and well established.
Overall, women's lives weren't always in such stark contrast to men's, but there were concessions to the demands of child-raising with years of career-building put on hold or concessions to work with a generation of latch-key kids or various combinations over time. There was the Mommy Track. There were media-fueled "Mommy Wars" and glass ceilings that began to seem unbreakable. We were the most educated and ambitious generation of women ever, coming of age in an era of growing opportunities for women and concurrent tough choices. Having it all was an incredible challenge.
Perhaps not by accident, inflation and growing wage stagnation made it more difficult for families to enjoy a middle class lifestyle on one salary. Increasingly, women had to work. For those of us with careers we loved, the situation wasn't as difficult -- except for women who faced the prospect of leaving young babies or small children in the care of another. For women who would have preferred to stay home with their children, leaving them to go to work could be agonizing. And, in the Eighties and Nineties, the stay-at-home-with-the-children Mom whom some of us had foolishly scorned as we grew up in the Fifties became an envied lifestyle -- either the option of a parent who was affluent enough not to have to work outside the home or one who, with a partner, had made major financial sacrifices to give the children full-time nurturing. And we realized, over time, that there were no easy choices or answers in our quest to have it all. There were times when some of us looked back with a certain nostalgia on the simple certainty of our mothers' lives.
We're growing older in an increasingly uncertain world.
We're growing older in a rapidly changing world of increased uncertainty -- uncertainty about the stability of our careers and earning futures, uncertainty about the possibility or stability of our retirement as controversy swirls about cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Some Boomers are considering the possibility that they will need to work until they are 70 or beyond --or, perhaps, never retire. At the same time, unemployment is disastrously high and particularly problematic for those in their forties, fifties or early sixties who face particularly steep odds as they search for new jobs.
We're watching and worrying as younger generations face challenges many of us didn't have: the prohibitive cost of college, the crushing burden of student loans, fewer jobs, the prevalence of no-pay or low-pay internships, the daunting cost of getting launched into an independent life.
We're watching as both political parties appear to put the interests of corporations and Wall Street, of political ambitions and strategies above the good of the nation and citizens in the economic lower 98%.
And we wonder what's to become of our country and of us.
We're learning, in a time of diminishing prospects and expectations, to find pleasure where we can, to live in the moment and cherish each day. In an age where simplification and frugality have become the new standard, we're learning to live with no-frills and are happier than we had ever imagined on less than we planned.
There are times, even now, when we look back with a hint of nostalgia at the simple certainty of our mothers' lives in the Fifties. And then we remember their frustration and paltry options. There are times when we look back at our own certainty, ambition and optimism in those heady, busy coming of age years -- and then we remember the difficult, sometimes heart-rending choices that had to be made. And, increasingly, there are times when we are grateful for our lives today -- times when we cherish the opportunity to look back on our lives and decide what has mattered most, times when we appreciate anew the value of family, friendships and enduring love.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Remembering Cyril Ritchard
Some friends and I were talking the other day about beloved idols of our youth. Elvis, Ricky Nelson, The Beatles, and the enduring Frank Sinatra all came up.
My husband Bob remembers that he saw Ricky Nelson as the cool guy he longed to be and Annette, blooming into puberty on "The Mickey Mouse Club" for a generation of enchanted young boys, as the perfect symbol of sweet sensuality.
When all of this was going on, I wasn't among the admirers of Elvis or Ricky. Instead, from the time I was nine years old, I was totally enamored with Cyril Ritchard, the 50-something Australian actor who played Captain Hook in Mary Martin's "Peter Pan". He was the villain, but I knew he was kidding. I knew in my heart that he was a good man pretending to be bad. He was about the same height and build as my father -- but, despite his campy villainy, he projected a winning combination of warmth, silliness, outrageous humor and dignity. I felt safe when I thought of him. And, in a home where, at times, I was very frightened of my raging, alcoholic father, I thought of him a lot.
I used to fantasize that he would somehow meet and marry my beloved Aunt Molly -- both were single, after all, he a recent widower, she never married -- and they would adopt me and my siblings and we would live happily and safely ever after.
I used to write him an occasional fan letter -- and he would always write back, in his own hand, on his personal stationery with his home address on Central Park West in New York or from his country home in Connecticut. I treasured the short, but kind letters that were so adult, yet non-condescending.
I used to cut out and save any articles I could find about him. He was in his most active period -- starring on Broadway, on television, directing Broadway shows and operas at the Met. And yet there was never enough press on him to satisfy me. Aunt Molly, a professional writer who found my love for Mr. Ritchard both touching and amusing, stepped in -- writing a series of phony press releases about him that used stills from old silent films. I thought they were hilarious.
Three of Aunt Molly's Mock Press Releases
My father laboriously copied them in his photo lab and we sent a bunch of them to my idol. He replied with delight that they were "excruciatingly funny! I have put them in a very special section of my scrapbook and was showing them to my dear friend Walter Pidgeon last night. He wishes someone would write something like that for him, too! Please extend my warmest thanks to your Aunt Molly! She is very clever, indeed!"
My heart leapt for joy!
I was even more excited when he came to Los Angeles with "Visit to a Small Planet" and invited me, my brother and my friend Mary Laing, to visit him in his dressing room after the matinee performance we attended. It was one of the happiest times of my childhood.
He greeted us enthusiastically, laughing when I shyly told him that I thought he was more handsome than Rock Hudson. "I can assure you, my dear, that no one has ever told me that before," he said, smiling. "But sit down and tell me about you. I want to know about all of you."
And so we sat and told him our likes and dislikes, our hopes and dreams. He asked questions and, most of all, he listened, his attention never wavering. We told him about our teachers and our pets and a myriad of details about our lives. I quietly told him that my father sometimes frightened me a lot. He took my hand.
We talked about faith and the power of God to heal the most painful wounds. He said that his faith had saved him when his only child, a son, passed away shortly after birth and when his beloved wife died of cancer. He assured me that faith could be my greatest support and greatest joy, too, and that it was something we would always share. He hugged me as we said goodbye and I felt a wonderful sense of safety and love.
Afterwards, I called Aunt Molly, who was living and working in Ohio at that time, to tell her the news. "Oh," she said, her voice choked with emotion. "I'm so glad! I'm so happy for you that he is such a good man, such a kind soul. I'm so glad he didn't disappoint you."
He never did -- even though he never met and thus never married Aunt Molly. Even though he never adopted me. Even though I never saw him in person again, the memory of his warmth and kindness, the interest he took in us, in me, when we visited was sustaining. The shared faith kept me hopeful through many dark times.
And I delighted in seeing his television performances and listening to him read "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" on boxed LP's Aunt Molly gave me for my 12th birthday -- records I treasure to this day. And I read articles about him with new understanding -- particularly when Sondra Lee, who had played Tiger Lily in the Broadway production and in all three television broadcasts of "Peter Pan" described him in one as "an absolutely delicious human being, the kindest person I have ever known."
Many years later, when he came to Los Angeles with the Broadway musical "Sugar", there was a free Actors Equity/Screen Actors Guild showing. A close friend of mine, actor Maurice Sherbanee, got tickets. But, at the last minute, I had to go on a business trip and couldn't attend. Maurice went by himself and phoned me later that night to say he was so glad I had missed the show. Cyril Ritchard had had a heart attack onstage, had gone into cardiac arrest and was revived by co-star Larry Kert who quickly administered CPR. "It was terrible," Maurice said. "He nearly died right there in front of everyone. I'm so glad you didn't have to see it." I sent Mr. Ritchard a note when he was recovering at home in Connecticut. He replied that the episode had been frightening but now he was feeling "wonderfully well and my day was brightened even more by your kind note."
Three years later, the outcome wasn't nearly as positive. Appearing in the National Company of "Side By Side, By Sondheim" in Chicago, he had another heart attack just offstage during a Thanksgiving performance. He was admitted to Northwestern Medical Center where he died on December 18, 1977 shortly after turning 80. I heard the news when I was in San Francisco working with Dr. Chuck Wibbelsman on our first book. Knowing my long affection for Cyril Ritchard, Çhuck brought me the newspaper, then embraced me.
While I grieved the loss of this good man and unique talent, I rejoiced that he had died doing what he loved, still active, still delighting audiences. And I still remember his inspired silliness, his kindness, his versatility as a director, his singular charm as an actor. He was an unconventional idol, to be sure, for a young tween -- but he brought immeasurable joy and hope to a young girl who needed that so much.
My husband Bob remembers that he saw Ricky Nelson as the cool guy he longed to be and Annette, blooming into puberty on "The Mickey Mouse Club" for a generation of enchanted young boys, as the perfect symbol of sweet sensuality.
When all of this was going on, I wasn't among the admirers of Elvis or Ricky. Instead, from the time I was nine years old, I was totally enamored with Cyril Ritchard, the 50-something Australian actor who played Captain Hook in Mary Martin's "Peter Pan". He was the villain, but I knew he was kidding. I knew in my heart that he was a good man pretending to be bad. He was about the same height and build as my father -- but, despite his campy villainy, he projected a winning combination of warmth, silliness, outrageous humor and dignity. I felt safe when I thought of him. And, in a home where, at times, I was very frightened of my raging, alcoholic father, I thought of him a lot.
I used to fantasize that he would somehow meet and marry my beloved Aunt Molly -- both were single, after all, he a recent widower, she never married -- and they would adopt me and my siblings and we would live happily and safely ever after.
I used to write him an occasional fan letter -- and he would always write back, in his own hand, on his personal stationery with his home address on Central Park West in New York or from his country home in Connecticut. I treasured the short, but kind letters that were so adult, yet non-condescending.
I used to cut out and save any articles I could find about him. He was in his most active period -- starring on Broadway, on television, directing Broadway shows and operas at the Met. And yet there was never enough press on him to satisfy me. Aunt Molly, a professional writer who found my love for Mr. Ritchard both touching and amusing, stepped in -- writing a series of phony press releases about him that used stills from old silent films. I thought they were hilarious.
Three of Aunt Molly's Mock Press Releases
My father laboriously copied them in his photo lab and we sent a bunch of them to my idol. He replied with delight that they were "excruciatingly funny! I have put them in a very special section of my scrapbook and was showing them to my dear friend Walter Pidgeon last night. He wishes someone would write something like that for him, too! Please extend my warmest thanks to your Aunt Molly! She is very clever, indeed!"
My heart leapt for joy!
I was even more excited when he came to Los Angeles with "Visit to a Small Planet" and invited me, my brother and my friend Mary Laing, to visit him in his dressing room after the matinee performance we attended. It was one of the happiest times of my childhood.
He greeted us enthusiastically, laughing when I shyly told him that I thought he was more handsome than Rock Hudson. "I can assure you, my dear, that no one has ever told me that before," he said, smiling. "But sit down and tell me about you. I want to know about all of you."
And so we sat and told him our likes and dislikes, our hopes and dreams. He asked questions and, most of all, he listened, his attention never wavering. We told him about our teachers and our pets and a myriad of details about our lives. I quietly told him that my father sometimes frightened me a lot. He took my hand.
We talked about faith and the power of God to heal the most painful wounds. He said that his faith had saved him when his only child, a son, passed away shortly after birth and when his beloved wife died of cancer. He assured me that faith could be my greatest support and greatest joy, too, and that it was something we would always share. He hugged me as we said goodbye and I felt a wonderful sense of safety and love.
Afterwards, I called Aunt Molly, who was living and working in Ohio at that time, to tell her the news. "Oh," she said, her voice choked with emotion. "I'm so glad! I'm so happy for you that he is such a good man, such a kind soul. I'm so glad he didn't disappoint you."
He never did -- even though he never met and thus never married Aunt Molly. Even though he never adopted me. Even though I never saw him in person again, the memory of his warmth and kindness, the interest he took in us, in me, when we visited was sustaining. The shared faith kept me hopeful through many dark times.
And I delighted in seeing his television performances and listening to him read "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" on boxed LP's Aunt Molly gave me for my 12th birthday -- records I treasure to this day. And I read articles about him with new understanding -- particularly when Sondra Lee, who had played Tiger Lily in the Broadway production and in all three television broadcasts of "Peter Pan" described him in one as "an absolutely delicious human being, the kindest person I have ever known."
Many years later, when he came to Los Angeles with the Broadway musical "Sugar", there was a free Actors Equity/Screen Actors Guild showing. A close friend of mine, actor Maurice Sherbanee, got tickets. But, at the last minute, I had to go on a business trip and couldn't attend. Maurice went by himself and phoned me later that night to say he was so glad I had missed the show. Cyril Ritchard had had a heart attack onstage, had gone into cardiac arrest and was revived by co-star Larry Kert who quickly administered CPR. "It was terrible," Maurice said. "He nearly died right there in front of everyone. I'm so glad you didn't have to see it." I sent Mr. Ritchard a note when he was recovering at home in Connecticut. He replied that the episode had been frightening but now he was feeling "wonderfully well and my day was brightened even more by your kind note."
Three years later, the outcome wasn't nearly as positive. Appearing in the National Company of "Side By Side, By Sondheim" in Chicago, he had another heart attack just offstage during a Thanksgiving performance. He was admitted to Northwestern Medical Center where he died on December 18, 1977 shortly after turning 80. I heard the news when I was in San Francisco working with Dr. Chuck Wibbelsman on our first book. Knowing my long affection for Cyril Ritchard, Çhuck brought me the newspaper, then embraced me.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Same Family, Differing Histories
When my brother Mike and his family visited us recently, he spent some time relaxing and reading some of my recent blog posts. After reading my blog about Roots and Wings, where I recounted my departure from home to college, he sighed. "You're the only one of us to leave home in what could be called a normal way," he said.
While my memory of departure was loving parents letting go, his reality as well as Tai's were to be quite different. He left home at 15, after years of physical and emotional abuse from our father, to go live with our maternal grandmother in Kansas, helping her on the farm and healing in the warmth of her unconditional love. Tai ran away from home when she was not quite 18, living with friends until she could find a job and a place of her own.
Even in less extreme family situations, siblings grow up experiencing the family and the world in a different way. Birth order, parental situations, and individual personalities can make such a difference in forming one's views of the family and of the past.
That's why a fond memory by one sibling is another's nightmare or may be greeted with a blank stare. That's why one sibling's feelings about aging parents may be different -- because he or she may have experienced the parents you shared at another life phase or in a whole different way.
I read recently that when one writes a memoir -- as I am in the process of doing -- it can be a minefield for family tensions because each sibling has his or her own take on what growing up in the family was like, with some shared and some very divergent memories.
The differences are quite apparent in my own family.
As the eldest child, I tried very hard to be good and to get along with both parents, keeping a low profile when things were not going well with father, doing everything I could to avoid upsetting him. I became very good at hiding.
Mike, an unusually winsome, loving child, found our father's fury and antipathy hard to understand. Once, when he was leaving for work, Father gave him a beating for no particular reason. Mike ran after him, weeping, his arms up, begging for a hug, as father climbed into his car. "Father!" he cried. "You forgot to kiss me goodbye!" Any time father was in a rare good mood, Mike would brighten. If father would take him up on his lap or show him some special attention, he was the happiest little boy alive. Unfortunately, those moments were rare.
Tai was born with spunk and spirit. The first time father hit her, when she was about two years old, she faced him, nose to his kneecap, hands on her hips, stamped her foot and yelled "Don't you ever, ever, ever do that to me again!" I held my breath. Father laughed and said "I like your spirit, kid!" And, many years later, while the rest of us -- either at home or at a distance -- were quiet when he went on a drinking binge with his stockpiled Cuban rum, Tai ran into the kitchen screaming and smashed his entire irreplaceable stash in the sink, calling him a "hopeless alcoholic" before running off into the night to the house of a friend.
While we all share some memories and experiences -- both fun and painful -- of growing up together, our dramatically different personal experiences, relationships with parents and reactions to what went on, colored our lives in a variety of ways.
I was the first child born to parents in their mid-thirties, on an Air Force base near the end of World War II. My parents were looking forward to the end of the war and the beginning of a prosperous and promising new life together. My father, a difficult and conflicted man, greeted me with love and exasperation, with nurturing and verbal abuse. He encouraged me to be the best I could be and to not let my gender hold me back -- even as he treated our mother like a second class citizen. As a result, I grew up driven, feeling I had to achieve to be loved, and wary of children as life-wreckers, after hearing much too often that having children had ruined my father's life. And yet, having been raised feeling that I was truly loved, I had no difficulty making friends and bonding with teachers, co-workers and some very good men. I got married at 32 and that marriage has survived and thrived for 34 years.
For Mike, the pain of his early years made him wary of commitment, unable to trust, until, in late middle age, he found just the right woman half a world away. A physician and expert in medical informatics, he was working at an international medical center in Bangkok, Thailand, when he met Amp -- a young Thai woman who is truly a twin soul. She's the only person I have ever met who is more frugal than he is. They married when he was 58 and had Maggie when he was 60. Late in life, he has a happy marriage and a bright, lively toddler daughter -- and the joy and peace of real connection at last.
Tai, born to parents in their mid-forties who felt little but despair over their life situation, was essentially an only child after age eight after both Mike and I left home. She has no memory of our father ever having a job or our parents being happy or living lives with any semblance of normality. She grew up feeling abandoned and alone in a family situation that was increasingly chaotic before she fled for her life. Her growing up experience has made her tough and resilient on the outside, tender on the inside. She married for the first time at 21 and has spent a lifetime working to build a viable family. It is, perhaps, no accident that she is a nurse who is dedicated to easing others' pain and is an infinitely patient parent to Nick.
It's important, in dealing with our siblings, to honor and respect their experiences, their memories and their very individual world views. It isn't a matter of arguing whether something did or didn't happen, whether a parent was this way or that. The truth lies in each one's singular experience.
I got an email from Mike on the 4th of July, telling me that this was always his favorite holiday because father had always been in a good mood on that whole holiday weekend and always let him shoot a little carbide canon all day if he wanted, an experience he describes as "pure pyrotechnic bliss. " And there were no beatings, ever, on the 4th of July. For Mike, it was a blessed time of refuge from life as usual, his favorite holiday of the year.
And so he was celebrating with enthusiasm the other day, buoyed by memories and by happy current realities. He sent me a picture of Maggie celebrating the 4th in her own way. And I rejoiced in his happiness and feeling of safety and contentment, knowing all that was very hard won.
Maggie celebrating her Dad's favorite holiday - July 4!
While my memory of departure was loving parents letting go, his reality as well as Tai's were to be quite different. He left home at 15, after years of physical and emotional abuse from our father, to go live with our maternal grandmother in Kansas, helping her on the farm and healing in the warmth of her unconditional love. Tai ran away from home when she was not quite 18, living with friends until she could find a job and a place of her own.
Even in less extreme family situations, siblings grow up experiencing the family and the world in a different way. Birth order, parental situations, and individual personalities can make such a difference in forming one's views of the family and of the past.
That's why a fond memory by one sibling is another's nightmare or may be greeted with a blank stare. That's why one sibling's feelings about aging parents may be different -- because he or she may have experienced the parents you shared at another life phase or in a whole different way.
I read recently that when one writes a memoir -- as I am in the process of doing -- it can be a minefield for family tensions because each sibling has his or her own take on what growing up in the family was like, with some shared and some very divergent memories.
The differences are quite apparent in my own family.
As the eldest child, I tried very hard to be good and to get along with both parents, keeping a low profile when things were not going well with father, doing everything I could to avoid upsetting him. I became very good at hiding.
Mike, an unusually winsome, loving child, found our father's fury and antipathy hard to understand. Once, when he was leaving for work, Father gave him a beating for no particular reason. Mike ran after him, weeping, his arms up, begging for a hug, as father climbed into his car. "Father!" he cried. "You forgot to kiss me goodbye!" Any time father was in a rare good mood, Mike would brighten. If father would take him up on his lap or show him some special attention, he was the happiest little boy alive. Unfortunately, those moments were rare.
Tai was born with spunk and spirit. The first time father hit her, when she was about two years old, she faced him, nose to his kneecap, hands on her hips, stamped her foot and yelled "Don't you ever, ever, ever do that to me again!" I held my breath. Father laughed and said "I like your spirit, kid!" And, many years later, while the rest of us -- either at home or at a distance -- were quiet when he went on a drinking binge with his stockpiled Cuban rum, Tai ran into the kitchen screaming and smashed his entire irreplaceable stash in the sink, calling him a "hopeless alcoholic" before running off into the night to the house of a friend.
While we all share some memories and experiences -- both fun and painful -- of growing up together, our dramatically different personal experiences, relationships with parents and reactions to what went on, colored our lives in a variety of ways.
I was the first child born to parents in their mid-thirties, on an Air Force base near the end of World War II. My parents were looking forward to the end of the war and the beginning of a prosperous and promising new life together. My father, a difficult and conflicted man, greeted me with love and exasperation, with nurturing and verbal abuse. He encouraged me to be the best I could be and to not let my gender hold me back -- even as he treated our mother like a second class citizen. As a result, I grew up driven, feeling I had to achieve to be loved, and wary of children as life-wreckers, after hearing much too often that having children had ruined my father's life. And yet, having been raised feeling that I was truly loved, I had no difficulty making friends and bonding with teachers, co-workers and some very good men. I got married at 32 and that marriage has survived and thrived for 34 years.
For Mike, the pain of his early years made him wary of commitment, unable to trust, until, in late middle age, he found just the right woman half a world away. A physician and expert in medical informatics, he was working at an international medical center in Bangkok, Thailand, when he met Amp -- a young Thai woman who is truly a twin soul. She's the only person I have ever met who is more frugal than he is. They married when he was 58 and had Maggie when he was 60. Late in life, he has a happy marriage and a bright, lively toddler daughter -- and the joy and peace of real connection at last.
Tai, born to parents in their mid-forties who felt little but despair over their life situation, was essentially an only child after age eight after both Mike and I left home. She has no memory of our father ever having a job or our parents being happy or living lives with any semblance of normality. She grew up feeling abandoned and alone in a family situation that was increasingly chaotic before she fled for her life. Her growing up experience has made her tough and resilient on the outside, tender on the inside. She married for the first time at 21 and has spent a lifetime working to build a viable family. It is, perhaps, no accident that she is a nurse who is dedicated to easing others' pain and is an infinitely patient parent to Nick.
It's important, in dealing with our siblings, to honor and respect their experiences, their memories and their very individual world views. It isn't a matter of arguing whether something did or didn't happen, whether a parent was this way or that. The truth lies in each one's singular experience.
I got an email from Mike on the 4th of July, telling me that this was always his favorite holiday because father had always been in a good mood on that whole holiday weekend and always let him shoot a little carbide canon all day if he wanted, an experience he describes as "pure pyrotechnic bliss. " And there were no beatings, ever, on the 4th of July. For Mike, it was a blessed time of refuge from life as usual, his favorite holiday of the year.
And so he was celebrating with enthusiasm the other day, buoyed by memories and by happy current realities. He sent me a picture of Maggie celebrating the 4th in her own way. And I rejoiced in his happiness and feeling of safety and contentment, knowing all that was very hard won.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Feeling the Limits With Adult Children
She was sitting in the gym locker room, furiously wiping tears away, when Kim and I walked in on her the other day. This woman, whom I'll call Joan, told us that she was feeling overwhelmed with fears and regrets: fears that her cherished 30-year-old son was about to make a major commitment to a woman she considered unworthy of him and regrets that she and her husband had ever moved to Arizona.
Their Phoenix-based son was the primary reason -- at least for Joan -- that they decided to leave their home of 42 years in the New York City area to move to the active adult community where we now live. Their son, however, has his own life: a live-in girlfriend, a home of his own, his own circle of friends. He likes seeing his parents occasionally, but they aren't the center of his universe.
Now that they're grown, you're up against some limits. It can be a delicate balance: to express concern without overstepping into criticism and carping, to care without imposing, to support without smothering, to love and let go.
When Joan asked her, mother to mother, how to handle her doubts about her son's romance, Kim, the seasoned parent of adult children, put it all very succinctly in the locker room that day: "You shut up and pray."
Their Phoenix-based son was the primary reason -- at least for Joan -- that they decided to leave their home of 42 years in the New York City area to move to the active adult community where we now live. Their son, however, has his own life: a live-in girlfriend, a home of his own, his own circle of friends. He likes seeing his parents occasionally, but they aren't the center of his universe.
In addition to wondering why she and her husband uprooted themselves to live near a son who can live quite easily, day to day, without them, Joan loathes the Southwestern desert with every fiber of her being. It didn't help that the outside temperature at that point was 113. "Everything here is so....beige...so hideous...so hot!" she sobbed. "I want to go back to New York!" Yes, they had visited this community briefly -- for a weekend in February -- before making their decision to move to Arizona. But the real reason they came was to be closer to their son.
"So what do you think?" she asked us. "Should I speak to my son frankly and tell him that this woman is trouble? That she's taking advantage of him if she decides to go back to school? That I'm hurt about her moving all the pictures and artifacts I've given him for his new home into the spare room? After all, I'm his mother! Should I tell him all this?"
Kim and I answered as one: "No!"
We told her stories of mothers who stepped over the line and drove their kids away -- emotionally or otherwise. We speculated on the future of the British Mom-zilla, whose harsh, critical email to her son's fiancee went viral over the Internet recently and her dim prospects of a good relationship with her son and future daughter-in-law. And we had stories closer to home. Kim talked about a friend whose potential mother-in-law made it clear that she disapproved of her son's relationship with her -- and although the marriage has been happy and the relationship between this woman and her mother-in-law was cordial, the closeness that both women might have enjoyed was precluded by that early hurt. And my childhood friend Mary told me that, in her happy 42-year-marriage, there has only been one dark cloud: the insistence of her in-laws that they continue to be the center of their son's life. That has meant more than four decades of annual vacations at the in-laws summer home in Maine rather than the trips Mary longed to take to a variety of places with her young family and with her husband when they became empty-nesters.
And it has meant that Mary learned to step back and let her own three children fly free of the nest. "It's a very hard, painful transition to make when your kids have been your whole life," she says. "But to let them go and live and vacation and love as they please is one of the greatest gifts I can give them. And, interestingly enough, it has made us closer. When they spend time with us, I know it's because they really want to be with us rather than feeling this heavy obligation."
Letting your adult children go is one thing. Learning to keep your mouth shut is quite another.
Of course, there are times when you can't keep quiet: when your adult child is doing serious, even life-threatening harm to himself or others, with substance abuse or child abuse or neglect or is showing signs of mental illness. Those are times when you intervene with love and with professional help.
But in the choices and decisions of daily life, you may find yourself biting your tongue.
When you see an adult child maneuvering through the minefields of ill-advised relationships, financial mistakes, professional mis-steps, and questionable child-raising strategies, it's incredibly hard to sit back and be neutral. You want to scream: "He's a jerk, for heavens' sake!" or "You have HOW much credit card debt?" or "You quit your job???" or "If you keep giving her everything she screams for, you're in for a rough ride for the next 20 years."
If you can't stay totally silent, it's important to frame your concern in loving, but non-intrusive ways:
"I love you so much and don't want to see you hurt. Most of all, I want you to be happy. Do you want to talk about your hopes and issues with this relationship? Or not?"
"I have faith that you can manage your life just fine, but I do have concerns when you tell me about this debt. Would you like some help in figuring out a budget or a payment plan that will get you out from under all that sooner?"
"What are you planning for the future? What did you learn from this job experience? How would you like the next to be different? How can I help you right now?"
"I know child-raising is different today and that you're totally committed to being a great parent. I'm just wondering how you set limits and when you say "No". How is she with 'No'?"
There are times, however, when it is just best to keep quiet, as excruciating as that can be.
As a parent, you know that no one will love or care for your son or daughter in quite the same way that you do. It's very hard to see kids get hurt or make mistakes, but such experiences add to growth and wisdom. Your stepping in to spare them all that is not likely to be appreciated.
Adult children need the freedom to love and lose, screw up, and struggle with choices. As a parent, you can be there to offer support and even advice if they ask for it. But unsolicited advice or what they might see as meddling can drive an emotional wedge between you and your adult child.
When your children were little, you taught them limits: not to interrupt when adults were speaking, to show respect for their elders, to pick up their toys, to hear the word "No" without backtalk or tantrums."So what do you think?" she asked us. "Should I speak to my son frankly and tell him that this woman is trouble? That she's taking advantage of him if she decides to go back to school? That I'm hurt about her moving all the pictures and artifacts I've given him for his new home into the spare room? After all, I'm his mother! Should I tell him all this?"
Kim and I answered as one: "No!"
We told her stories of mothers who stepped over the line and drove their kids away -- emotionally or otherwise. We speculated on the future of the British Mom-zilla, whose harsh, critical email to her son's fiancee went viral over the Internet recently and her dim prospects of a good relationship with her son and future daughter-in-law. And we had stories closer to home. Kim talked about a friend whose potential mother-in-law made it clear that she disapproved of her son's relationship with her -- and although the marriage has been happy and the relationship between this woman and her mother-in-law was cordial, the closeness that both women might have enjoyed was precluded by that early hurt. And my childhood friend Mary told me that, in her happy 42-year-marriage, there has only been one dark cloud: the insistence of her in-laws that they continue to be the center of their son's life. That has meant more than four decades of annual vacations at the in-laws summer home in Maine rather than the trips Mary longed to take to a variety of places with her young family and with her husband when they became empty-nesters.
And it has meant that Mary learned to step back and let her own three children fly free of the nest. "It's a very hard, painful transition to make when your kids have been your whole life," she says. "But to let them go and live and vacation and love as they please is one of the greatest gifts I can give them. And, interestingly enough, it has made us closer. When they spend time with us, I know it's because they really want to be with us rather than feeling this heavy obligation."
Letting your adult children go is one thing. Learning to keep your mouth shut is quite another.
Of course, there are times when you can't keep quiet: when your adult child is doing serious, even life-threatening harm to himself or others, with substance abuse or child abuse or neglect or is showing signs of mental illness. Those are times when you intervene with love and with professional help.
But in the choices and decisions of daily life, you may find yourself biting your tongue.
When you see an adult child maneuvering through the minefields of ill-advised relationships, financial mistakes, professional mis-steps, and questionable child-raising strategies, it's incredibly hard to sit back and be neutral. You want to scream: "He's a jerk, for heavens' sake!" or "You have HOW much credit card debt?" or "You quit your job???" or "If you keep giving her everything she screams for, you're in for a rough ride for the next 20 years."
If you can't stay totally silent, it's important to frame your concern in loving, but non-intrusive ways:
"I love you so much and don't want to see you hurt. Most of all, I want you to be happy. Do you want to talk about your hopes and issues with this relationship? Or not?"
"I have faith that you can manage your life just fine, but I do have concerns when you tell me about this debt. Would you like some help in figuring out a budget or a payment plan that will get you out from under all that sooner?"
"What are you planning for the future? What did you learn from this job experience? How would you like the next to be different? How can I help you right now?"
"I know child-raising is different today and that you're totally committed to being a great parent. I'm just wondering how you set limits and when you say "No". How is she with 'No'?"
There are times, however, when it is just best to keep quiet, as excruciating as that can be.
As a parent, you know that no one will love or care for your son or daughter in quite the same way that you do. It's very hard to see kids get hurt or make mistakes, but such experiences add to growth and wisdom. Your stepping in to spare them all that is not likely to be appreciated.
Adult children need the freedom to love and lose, screw up, and struggle with choices. As a parent, you can be there to offer support and even advice if they ask for it. But unsolicited advice or what they might see as meddling can drive an emotional wedge between you and your adult child.
Now that they're grown, you're up against some limits. It can be a delicate balance: to express concern without overstepping into criticism and carping, to care without imposing, to support without smothering, to love and let go.
When Joan asked her, mother to mother, how to handle her doubts about her son's romance, Kim, the seasoned parent of adult children, put it all very succinctly in the locker room that day: "You shut up and pray."
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Where Is Home?
Bob and I moved to our spacious new home in Arizona fourteen months ago and have delighted in owning our first brand new house with all the modern conveniences and plenty of space for us, our cats and our hobbies and interests. The neighbors are wonderful, the community welcoming, the pace of living is just what we had hoped. In short, things couldn't be better.
Our home at Sun City Anthem Merrill Ranch, AZ -2011
Then how to explain my sudden tears when our next door neighbors Carl and Judith, while vacationing in Southern California, sent us an online postcard of our Valencia home of 29 years, a house we sold and left 14 months ago?
Postcard of our former Valencia, CA home - 2011
"Our home!" I gasped when I saw the picture. I noticed the pines had grown even taller, that the citrus trees inside the gate were in bad need of trimming, that the little flower pot I had put on the gate when our house went up for sale was still sitting there. And, as I studied the photo, tears rolled down my cheeks. I couldn't understand why I was crying. Bob and I have agreed many times that it would be very hard to go back to 1300 square feet after spreading out so happily over 2345 square feet here. It would be very tough to go back to a neighborhood where people were so busy working and commuting that they didn't have the time or energy to get to know each other. The Los Angeles area traffic would be horrible after the freedom of country roads. And yet....
I remember the day we moved into the house in Valenica -- the first we had ever owned. I was 36 and Bob was 37. We were thrilled with the openness of the floor plan that made this little house seem larger. It was almost new: the previous owners had lived there for only a few months before deciding to move back to Canada. They had planted pine trees and built berms in front of the fence in the front of the house, nothing else. Over time, Bob and I added our own touches -- a line of citrus trees producing delicious grapefruit and oranges in winter, fragrant blossons in spring, lush grass, shade trees on the backyard slope and, later on, a beautiful hand set stone waterfall on that slope that we called "Molly's Falls" in memory of my beloved Aunt Molly who always thought there should be a waterfall there. The sound of the water often soothed my soul after an exhausting day and brought back memories of Aunt Molly and the wonderful times we had together in that house.
Molly's Falls at former home in memory of Aunt Molly
Because my parents died when we were all still quite young, my home in Valencia became the family homestead for my brother and sister, who joined us for many years of holidays, fun visits and quiet talks. Bob and I knew many years of contentment, sitting by the hearth on rainy days, enjoying reading in our living room lined with floor to ceiling bookcases. Our first cat Freddie, the only cat we ever allowed outside, roamed the slope with great pleasure, hunting, communing with neighborhood cats and resting in the shade of the many trees. Twenty-nine years of memories -- both joyous and painful, 29 years of hopes and dreams, 29 years of daily living took place under its roof.
And that little house was our safe haven, our sturdy little home that stood up to a number of challenges.
There was the 1994 Northridge earthquake that awakened us with terror one early morning in January. Everything came out of the kitchen cabinets. Two bookcases crashed over by our bed. The house was a mess and, hampered by lack of running water, it took us more than a week to clean up (trying to clean a mixture of broken glass mixed with Midori melon liquer off the kitchen floor with a bottle of Evian was a real challenge!). But houses nearby were actually split in two by the quake. A whole condo project a few blocks away was destroyed. So, even as we scrubbed, we were thankful that the house itself had stood firm.
A year and a half later, the house next door -- the home of our beloved neighbor Carol Wilson, a 65 year old widow -- caught fire due to an electrical wiring defect in the attic. The fire, undetected, quickly spread throughout the attic, coming down through a ceiling fan outlet in Carol's bedroom, where she was relaxing, watching a Dodger game on t.v. The flames ignited the oxygen tanks Carol kept by her bed. The house exploded. I was at a nearby supermarket at the time and heard the explosion, which sounded like a sonic boom. I wondered if the space shuttle was landing at Edwards Air Force Base again. Unusual for it to be coming in at 9 p.m. I drove home and rounded the corner to see my own house on fire. It took another moment to realize that the primary fire, the real devastation, was next door. The scene was total chaos with firefighters, police, and a crowd of neighbors. I searched the crowd frantically for Bob, for Carol....The arms of strangers enveloped me as we all came together for yet another neighborhood disaster. Finally, I found the arms of Carol's other next door neighbor Ruth Milne. She held me tight. "She didn't make it," she said softly. We wept together until Bob found us. Our house was saved. We only lost our roof. But the loss of Carol saddens me to this day.
And then there was the day in 2003 when, after a difficult recovery from thoracic surgery, I had been called back to work a week early at the psychiatric clinic where I was a therapist. Angry, resentful and still hurting, I went. And while I was gone, there was a violent break-in at our house. Gang members from nearby San Fernando chopped in the front door with an axe and upended every shelf, drawer and piece of furniture in the house, stealing jewelry, my laptop computer and some small electronics. We found our cats Timmy and Gus trembling under the only towel remaining in the linen closet. There was a shoe shaped black smudge on Gus' head. It was weeks before they would go back into the living room.
About that time, my literary agent Susan Protter, on the phone from New York, asked the logical question: "Haven't you ever thought about moving?"
We had thought about it, but this was so much home to us. We decided that only retirement and a really terrific new home and community could make us move.
And so the time came. We found Sun City Anthem Merrill Ranch in Florence, Arizona. It was exactly what we had hoped and dreamed. And we saw a house there, under construction at the time, that was even more than we had dreamed. Indeed, we had never imagined that we'd be living in such a big, beautiful new home. Everything was -- and is -- perfect or nearly so.
So why did the tears come when Carl and Judith sent us that online postcard of our former home?
Where is home, after all? It's said that home is where the heart is. And our hearts are certainly here in this new home, in this community we truly love. Unless fate somehow intervenes, we expect that it will be our home for the rest of our lives. And yet, it's quite likely that we will probably be here for fewer years than we lived in that modest brown house in Valencia.
I guess the tears were for all the years of living, loving and growing there. The tears were for the memories -- of friendships made and friends tragically lost, for the fragrant citrus blossoms and juicy harvests, for the holidays shared with family, for good times with friends we see less frequently now, for the familiarity and comfort within those walls, for the soothing sound of Molly's Falls.
I guess, however comfortable, content and absolutely joyous life is here, a piece of my heart will always be in that little brown house surrounded by pine trees and soothed by the sound of Molly's Falls.
Then how to explain my sudden tears when our next door neighbors Carl and Judith, while vacationing in Southern California, sent us an online postcard of our Valencia home of 29 years, a house we sold and left 14 months ago?
"Our home!" I gasped when I saw the picture. I noticed the pines had grown even taller, that the citrus trees inside the gate were in bad need of trimming, that the little flower pot I had put on the gate when our house went up for sale was still sitting there. And, as I studied the photo, tears rolled down my cheeks. I couldn't understand why I was crying. Bob and I have agreed many times that it would be very hard to go back to 1300 square feet after spreading out so happily over 2345 square feet here. It would be very tough to go back to a neighborhood where people were so busy working and commuting that they didn't have the time or energy to get to know each other. The Los Angeles area traffic would be horrible after the freedom of country roads. And yet....
I remember the day we moved into the house in Valenica -- the first we had ever owned. I was 36 and Bob was 37. We were thrilled with the openness of the floor plan that made this little house seem larger. It was almost new: the previous owners had lived there for only a few months before deciding to move back to Canada. They had planted pine trees and built berms in front of the fence in the front of the house, nothing else. Over time, Bob and I added our own touches -- a line of citrus trees producing delicious grapefruit and oranges in winter, fragrant blossons in spring, lush grass, shade trees on the backyard slope and, later on, a beautiful hand set stone waterfall on that slope that we called "Molly's Falls" in memory of my beloved Aunt Molly who always thought there should be a waterfall there. The sound of the water often soothed my soul after an exhausting day and brought back memories of Aunt Molly and the wonderful times we had together in that house.
Because my parents died when we were all still quite young, my home in Valencia became the family homestead for my brother and sister, who joined us for many years of holidays, fun visits and quiet talks. Bob and I knew many years of contentment, sitting by the hearth on rainy days, enjoying reading in our living room lined with floor to ceiling bookcases. Our first cat Freddie, the only cat we ever allowed outside, roamed the slope with great pleasure, hunting, communing with neighborhood cats and resting in the shade of the many trees. Twenty-nine years of memories -- both joyous and painful, 29 years of hopes and dreams, 29 years of daily living took place under its roof.
And that little house was our safe haven, our sturdy little home that stood up to a number of challenges.
There was the 1994 Northridge earthquake that awakened us with terror one early morning in January. Everything came out of the kitchen cabinets. Two bookcases crashed over by our bed. The house was a mess and, hampered by lack of running water, it took us more than a week to clean up (trying to clean a mixture of broken glass mixed with Midori melon liquer off the kitchen floor with a bottle of Evian was a real challenge!). But houses nearby were actually split in two by the quake. A whole condo project a few blocks away was destroyed. So, even as we scrubbed, we were thankful that the house itself had stood firm.
A year and a half later, the house next door -- the home of our beloved neighbor Carol Wilson, a 65 year old widow -- caught fire due to an electrical wiring defect in the attic. The fire, undetected, quickly spread throughout the attic, coming down through a ceiling fan outlet in Carol's bedroom, where she was relaxing, watching a Dodger game on t.v. The flames ignited the oxygen tanks Carol kept by her bed. The house exploded. I was at a nearby supermarket at the time and heard the explosion, which sounded like a sonic boom. I wondered if the space shuttle was landing at Edwards Air Force Base again. Unusual for it to be coming in at 9 p.m. I drove home and rounded the corner to see my own house on fire. It took another moment to realize that the primary fire, the real devastation, was next door. The scene was total chaos with firefighters, police, and a crowd of neighbors. I searched the crowd frantically for Bob, for Carol....The arms of strangers enveloped me as we all came together for yet another neighborhood disaster. Finally, I found the arms of Carol's other next door neighbor Ruth Milne. She held me tight. "She didn't make it," she said softly. We wept together until Bob found us. Our house was saved. We only lost our roof. But the loss of Carol saddens me to this day.
And then there was the day in 2003 when, after a difficult recovery from thoracic surgery, I had been called back to work a week early at the psychiatric clinic where I was a therapist. Angry, resentful and still hurting, I went. And while I was gone, there was a violent break-in at our house. Gang members from nearby San Fernando chopped in the front door with an axe and upended every shelf, drawer and piece of furniture in the house, stealing jewelry, my laptop computer and some small electronics. We found our cats Timmy and Gus trembling under the only towel remaining in the linen closet. There was a shoe shaped black smudge on Gus' head. It was weeks before they would go back into the living room.
About that time, my literary agent Susan Protter, on the phone from New York, asked the logical question: "Haven't you ever thought about moving?"
We had thought about it, but this was so much home to us. We decided that only retirement and a really terrific new home and community could make us move.
And so the time came. We found Sun City Anthem Merrill Ranch in Florence, Arizona. It was exactly what we had hoped and dreamed. And we saw a house there, under construction at the time, that was even more than we had dreamed. Indeed, we had never imagined that we'd be living in such a big, beautiful new home. Everything was -- and is -- perfect or nearly so.
So why did the tears come when Carl and Judith sent us that online postcard of our former home?
Where is home, after all? It's said that home is where the heart is. And our hearts are certainly here in this new home, in this community we truly love. Unless fate somehow intervenes, we expect that it will be our home for the rest of our lives. And yet, it's quite likely that we will probably be here for fewer years than we lived in that modest brown house in Valencia.
I guess the tears were for all the years of living, loving and growing there. The tears were for the memories -- of friendships made and friends tragically lost, for the fragrant citrus blossoms and juicy harvests, for the holidays shared with family, for good times with friends we see less frequently now, for the familiarity and comfort within those walls, for the soothing sound of Molly's Falls.
I guess, however comfortable, content and absolutely joyous life is here, a piece of my heart will always be in that little brown house surrounded by pine trees and soothed by the sound of Molly's Falls.
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