Thanks for all the memories

Over this recent weekend the USA was deluged with JFK assassination dramas, recreations, books, and the ever popular Zapruder film.  Every person who was even a fetus in Dallas on that day had been interviewed and inculcated or dismissed as someone involved in the conspiracy.  Since abortions are really, really tough to find in Texas, there may have been a zygote or two thinking nasty thoughts, but not that thought. Dear Lord, not those thoughts.  The removal of one man from the world could so  change the future? To take someone from his friends and family for your own personal gain, even if it is as foolish as thinking the nation would benefit.  Buddha was right. Delusions, all delusions.

Mrs. Perry, our elementary school principal, stood in the doorway of our third grade classroom (and when Mrs. Perry stood in the doorway, she was the doorway) and told us President Kennedy had died and we were all going home.  The home part I got, even at age seven.  What I did not know was who President Kennedy was. I thought there were two guys.  The ones above the blackboard..

 

The bearded guy and the man with the mouth full of mashed potatoes that I saw every school day. Now because someone whose first name was also President had "died in Dallas."

Two more words there.  What is "died"? and what is "Dallas"?

I had no experience, as far as I am know, of anyone dying when I was a kid.  My mother's mom died in May 1961, and I don't remember a thing about it (hey come on, I was 4) or her at all.  Her grave site has no marker (right now). And with my mother and sister gone, and all cousins way off the grid, this is all I have:

She was hard working lady, divorced when people did not get divorced, and as a single mom raised her two kids during the Depression. She had a wide family support system, which is not always the case nowadays.  Frances McBride Van Wert is just a set of pictures now.  But I am grateful for her toughness. It helps.

So Frances did not die, she never was to me as a kid. Same with JFK.  Until his funeral.  I watched the entire procession, about three feet away from the TV tube.  I was amazed at the pageantry (in black and white) and the horses, and the drums. The drums.  Even writing those words brings the sound back into my head.  Bump Bump da Bump da da da da da Bump Bump da Bump.  Over and over. Goose bumps again

And that's when I started screaming. That night, or some night just after, I was dreaming I was riding in the car with President Kennedy. I hear a popping sound and the President's head tumbles on to my shoulder.  He screams something into my neck and I woke up screaming.  My parents had me sleep with them that night.  And I can replay that dream in a second.  I wish MS would find that memory and dump it, instead of the one that knows where my car keys are.

Sometime later my parents gave me a book (Tell Me Why series) about President John F. Kennedy. I kept that book for years.  Questions and Answers.  Where was he born? Who were his parents? What did he do? Why did Jack and Jackie dance to the Tennessee Waltz?  I was grateful for that, as well.  It turned me on to American history. So many stories to tell....

Now that I am eleven years older than JFK was when he died, its amazing how much living he put into his 46 years.  Yes, yes, he had his foibles and we know about the womanizing, blah blah, sell some books, or get them at the dollar store in a few years.  What matters is those two kids lost their dad.  Like my mother Marge lost her mother Frances when Marge was 37, or my two nieces and nephew lost their dad (ages 9, 14, and 16) - there he was, and then he wasn't  The guidepost was taken, whether by assassin's bullet or an aneurysm or the long stretched out death of cancer, and the nation, and my family were never the same.  But you go on, because you have to, and treasure what you got, because that's all you get.  Sometimes its the weight of those memories that slow us down and consider the road we are traveling.

But there were memories, and they remain.  My mother told me that I was very talented, though this may not be what she had in mind:

Yes, I am ironing.  Problem with that?  So early on I was a neat freak.  My mother was always washing and ironing clothes, so I thought I'd earn my keep.  The lady on the right in the picture is my father's mother.  That's a whole 'nother story.

Last year I gave list of what I am and am not grateful for.  I am grateful that my mind, damaged by MS, still lets me tell stories. And that I have my group of angels (some seen and some not) all about me to keep me hanging on. And I intend to hang on.  With only occasional screams.  Happy Thanksgiving.

" The work begins anew. The hope rises again. And the dream lives on."  Senator Edward Kennedy.  2008 Democratic National Convention

   

                      

How Crazy Did Your Mother Make You?

May 12 is Mother's Day, as if Hallmark and its associates haven't reminded you enough.  Since you are reading this, I'll go out on a limb and say it is May 12 2013 or beyond, and, if you note the day, as perhaps my myriad Russian readers do not, you've either thought about or were in contact with your female parental representative.  I phrase it that way as Moms now come in all sizes, shapes and genders, biological or whimsical.  Some of the best Moms I've met in my travels did not follow the "traditional" way.

My mother would not fit the mold either. Oh, it was a traditional husband-wife (male-female) bond with three children.  She was a working mom from the early 1960s until the mid 1990s.  She did office work, mostly, and saw the way things work in small offices - where being pals, golf buddies, good old boys worked with all the other males that were employed mostly assuredly kept that glass ceiling in place, no matter how much of a dunderhead the male in charge was.

Lesson for Tom: Since you're shy anyway, go where merit will do it. Take a civil service test. I did, and, after a few years, became a supervisor of staffs from 4 to 40, and was ready to take the place of previously hired dunderheads.

My mother was told she was smart by the teachers at her high school.  This was 1941.  She was told she could do well in college.  Then she met my father, a handsome devil from South Troy, and other things got in the way.  Pearl Harbor.  My father was drafted, and my mother played Rosie the Riveter building the bombers that helped my father win the war all by himself.  My Dad had some liberty time in 1944. and 9 months later my older brother was born.  No more thoughts of college.  I know she was sad she never made it.  But she raised three kids.  I was the surprise 1956 baby.

Lesson for Tom: You never know what can happen, so keep your eye on the prize, but adjust, adjust, and accept. I finished with a Master's degree, and handed both my mother and wife diplomas of gratitude also that day.

My mother's mom Frances died May 1961.  I vaguely recall the day, probably because of the high emotion.  Frances was a single mom who actually was divorced in the 1930s (scandal!) and raised her two children on her own, with a little help from her own parents.  My uncle Jim was a Marine, was on Iwo Jima, came home and raised three kids with his wife Kay.  The first home movies we have are of my parents and my aunt and uncle playing badminton, and having a great time.  My mother thought her mom was a saint, and its hard to disagree.

Frances, me, and my father's mom Julia.  I have no clue why I am ironing.

Lesson for Tom: As Crosby, Stills, and Nash said "And you, of tender years, can't know the fears that your elders grew by."  Be grateful for life and what your parents did for you.  Pay them back by living a good life.

By 1970 both grandmothers were gone, and my mother's father was just a blip on a screen. I met him twice.  He had another family in Ohio.  I met a half cousin once.  My father's father died in the 1930s, and he gets his own column sometime. So things moved on, and my brother and sister got married and moved out, and then my father got sick, and died.  This is when I started seeing my mother in a different light.  It took my own road to mental illness to see this light.

My mother was bi-polar, and this came from her Mom who suffered from depression.  She was never necessarily diagnosed, except by her bipolar son, me. (There is no rule on this, but sometime we, as bipolar, can see "One of us"). It has made the last twenty years more understandable.  My mother watched as her mother, husband and daughter died slowly.  She saw herself moving from decent middle class life to someone who needed support from her two sons, and shut herself off emotionally  except for anger at everyone.  She cried, raged, and railed at the world, punishing God by not believing, and everyone else for not being who she wanted.  She could, of course, be nice, kind and adored by little children and her great grandchildren and strangers in a store by sharing her sense of humor.  She was and could be a great lady to be around. And she took to Jackie's sister's family as another Grandma.

My mother died on May 12, 2001.  Today is May 12, 2013, Mother's Day.  She never saw my mental decline, suicide attempt, diagnosis and rebirth. Nor the MS that would hit from my father's side of the family. She'd be angry that I was hit, but, I hope, proud of how I've handled it, using some of her cues. Her lessons were observed, noted, and followed or not.

But all is forgiven.  That is the lesson. Patience, understanding, caring, doing the best you can. Good lessons.  Happy Mother's Day, Mom, and all moms.

Thank you, Mom.