REMEMBERING 9/11

Tomorrow is 9/11.  That date will forever be etched in the lives of those who lived through that day.  I have kept a journal about this period.  Took pictures, kept samples of all the things that came across that had a patriotic symbol on it…all in remembrance of what we experienced that 9/11.  Now, on the anniversary I write in my journal once again, updating what we have been doing, never imagining that I would be writing an update so far in the future chronicling the aftermath of that day.  But here we are, still fighting and losing our young men and women in a war that looks like it’s impossible to win.  

I know I was forever changed by that moment.  There is nothing I can say here to change our lives as they are today, but one thing has not changed and that is the love I carry in my heart for those in my life.  What I wrote to my children that first Thanksgiving after 9/11 is as relevant today as it was then, so I shall share it here with you.

Thanksgiving 2001

To Our Dearest Children,

Due to the events of September 11th, Thanksgiving has taken on a new meaning for many of us.  After the first few days of shock and grief, I looked around and saw that we all were intact and I said, “Thank you, God.”

The events of September 11th have touched my soul.  Although Joliene was closest to ground zero, I needed to hear all of your voices.  I needed to know you were all okay.  That was the most frightening morning that my life had ever experienced.  I will never be the same.  Thoughts are deeper.  Touches have more sensation.  The eyes see more intensely.  Through all of this, by how you live, you have reminded me that this too shall pass and life goes on; the wedding plans, the expecting of a newborn baby, the goals that are being set, the hope for something or someone of tomorrow.

Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on the good things that have happened to us.  YOU are the good things that have happened to us.  I love you in ways that words alone are too inadequate to express.  it is a joy to be your parent.  My life is a rich mosaic of personalities, experiences, and emotions just because of you.

I hope you too take a moment during this Thanksgiving holiday to reflect on your surroundings. your life, and especially your goals.  I have a friend who lives by a three-word philosophy:  “Seize the moment.”  Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven’t thought about it, don’t have it on their schedule, didn’t know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine.  If September 11th taught us anything, it taught us to seize the moment.

I read somewhere that “we Americans cram so much into our lives, that we tend to schedule our headaches. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect:  We’ll go back and visit the grandparents when we get Stevie toilet-trained.  We’ll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet.  We’ll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college.”

Life has a way of accelerating as we get older.  The days get shorter, and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer.  One morning, we awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of “I’m going to…” I plan on…” and “Someday, when things are settled down a bit…”  Dad said this year as he faced his latest physical challenge, “I thought I would work, retire and end my days fishing off into the sunset.”  Well, we will work, he will retire, but we will be searching for other things to do in that sunset and all I keep thinking of are the times when we put those fishing trips off waiting for the day in the future when all things would be perfect to follow our dream.

When anyone calls my seize-the-moment-friend, she is open to adventure and available for trips.  She keeps an open mind on new ideas.  Her enthusiasm for life is contagious.  September 11th says to me now go live and be more like my friend.  Life is a balance between our wants and needs.  it is important to keep your responsibilities in tact, but do not forget that it is also important to do something on your “WANT TO…not just something on your SHOULD DO list.

A woman in my memoir group wrote the following and with her permission I share it with you:

Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry-go-round?  Or listened to the rain lapping on the ground?  Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?  Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?  Slow down.  Don’t dance so fast.  Time is short.  The music won’t last.

Do you run through each day on the fly?  When you ask, “How are you?”, do you hear the reply?  When the day is done, do you lie in your bed with the next hundred chores running through your head?  Ever told your child, “We’ll do it tomorrow.  And in your haste, not see his sorrow?  Ever lost touch?  Let a good friendship die?  Just call to say “Hi?  You’d better slow down…do not dance so fast.  Time is short.  The music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere, you miss half the fun of getting there.  When you worry and hurry through your day, it is like an unopened gift…thrown away.  Life is not  a race.  Take it slower.  Hear the music before the song is over.

Your Dad and I wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving.

With All Our Love…

Much has changed since that 9/11, except for this one thing…my love for my family remains as deep and hard as it was that first Thanksgiving after 9/11.

How has 9/11 changed you?

FATTY FATTY TWO BY FOUR...

There is nothing funny about Comedian Nicole Arbour.  She is getting a lot of attention these days for her “Fat Shaming” video by those who have the courage to produce their own video fighting back.  The truth is, fat shaming is not just what Nicole Arbour does, it is what many do.  I believe it is the accepted form of bullying.  When is the last time you heard anyone say to someone who makes fat crude jokes, that they should not.  I haven’t.  I would be interested to hear if you have.

I am going to lay it out there…I have never been thin.  NEVER!  In 5th grade, my report card shows that I was 1/2 inch off my adult height and weighed 155 pounds.  A weight I carried right up to my first pregnancy when I was 23 years old.  Each of my four pregnancies added some weight (reaching 175 lbs) until I became the long-term caretaker of my dying husband in which I gained my most weight…a weight I carry today.  No excuses…it’s just what happened.  I have been on many diets over my life time.  I would initially lose weight but eventually it came back to where I started.

Carrying weight above what society says should be, has taken its toll on my self-esteem and emotional well-being.  Starting in those elementary years right up through today, I can honestly say not a day passes that I don’t experience something by someone that lets me know I am fat.  

In my 8th grade class from Gavin Grade School, we had a tradition of signing autograph books as our class graduated elementary school heading off to high school.  Some of the boys in my class filled my book with poems reading, “Fatty, fatty, two by four, can’t get through the kitchen door….” sending me out with a life time of insecurities and self conscience and negative attitudes towards myself.  And in my case, this treatment was only the frosting on a cake that was already soured by a complicated childhood.  

I never had a safe place from “fat comments.”  Over the years, conversations with long distance relatives would often include a question, “lose any weight lately?”  It would sting, but I would brush it off the best I could.

Look, I get how weight can be a detriment towards good health, but at the same time I also recognize that sometimes weight is caused by more than poor choices.  My daughter suffers from Polycystic ovary syndrome, which showed up while she was in college.  One noticeable symptom of POS is weight gain.  It is heartbreaking to watch how differently someone you love is treated just because they carry more weight than what is “acceptable” by society standards.  

Yes, bullying comes in many forms.  And the video that Nicole Arbour produced is a form of bullying.  In a society where we celebrate those who call people who disagree with them “losers” and name call anyone different than themselves, I don’t know how to expect anything different.  I am filled with sadness when I see how we tolerate being cruel to one another.  I cannot change the world, but I can choose to be kind and accepting to those around me, no matter how different they are as compared to me.  

9/8/2015

DESCRIBE YOUR FAMILY

According to the dictionary, the definition of a family is a group consisting of parents and children living together in a household.

An Intelligencer reporter, Christina Kristofic, is asking us to send our description of what our “family” is for a piece she wants to write as the World Meeting of Family approaches here in Philadelphia.  When I first read her question my first thought was, depends on what stage of life you are talking about.

My childhood was not and is not anything I want a do over in.  Getting as far away from those times has been my life long quest.  It is a time period where the world “normal” had profound meaning for me as I did not believe I was “normal” in any fashion.

My “normal” did not start until I met and married my late husband of 45 years.  Together we created the family I could only dream about as a child.  Four children in 4 1/2 years made for a fast, compact, and full existence.  I worked hard at “being a good mother”, even when my own children didn’t appreciate it.  My husband’s family were kind, loving and taught me the meaning of unconditional love.  Family gatherings carried a high priority and one did not miss the event unless it was a life and death situation.  

The wonderful thing about the family we created as a couple is that our table always made room for those without family connections.  A tradition that carries on today.  Our son and his wife host the family Thanksgiving celebration, and every year he expects a call from one of us asking, “I have a friend who….” all the while counting on the fact that their answer would be yes.  Of course last year’s 27 people at the dinner table may have pushed the hospitality to the limit!

Today, as a widowed senior,  family life has taken on another meaning.  One where family gatherings are sandwiched in-between a lot of quiet lonely times.  When I am with my children and their families I see through them, the fulfilled life I once had and long for even today.  My husband’s illness and early death did not allow for us to have that special “empty nest” experience I hear many talk about. Children grown with families of their own, grandchildren entering their teenage years, making it that I am just an old person who visits now and then, leaves me searching for any purpose in my existence today.   

So when Ms. Kristofic asks what comes to mind when I hear the word family, I am carried back to my fulfilling days of being a wife and mother, surrounded by wonderful neighbors and friends and experience the joy of knowing that through our love and experience, we have passed on that same sense of purpose and tradition of a loving family to our children.  That in the end fulfills my ultimate purpose.

WHY WRITE MY MEMOIR?

I lead a Memoir Class in the community in which I live.  The most common question I get regarding our Memoir Group is “Why write a memoir?”  So I reached out to some people I know who are in the process or have written their own memoir and here are a few of their answers:

"I want them to know 'the real me,' to know I had an interesting, adventuresome life."

"To understand my life by looking backward."

"To write something for myself."

"I want to talk about all the fun we had."

“I loved life on the home front during WWII and I wanted my grandkids to know what it was like.”

"I grew up in an Irish neighborhood in Philadelphia which no longer exists. I wanted my kids and grandkids to know what that life was like in the city."

“To share our immigrant story."

"To capture the stories, but not in a lot of depth."

"To write the story of my military life.”

“To share what life was like during the depression.”

You don’t have to have led a spectacular life to write a memoir…you just need to be you, and find the story in your experience.  I have had people tell me their story, then follow that by saying I cannot write so I don’t know how to write my story.  I tell them to write it as you just told it, in your own voice, your own style, and your own way.  It is that simple.

Many people confuse memoir writing with autobiographies.  Autobiographies encompass the entire life of the writer, where memoir writing focuses in on just one given period.  Which is why memoir groups are growing in popularity.  Pick a topic and write about it as you lived the moment.

I share a story about two sisters I know who lost their mother early in their life.  Their father remarried about a year after their mother died.  These two sisters, loved their step-mother but over the years as they went through the special occasions in their own lives they missed their mother and wished they knew more about her.  Afraid they might hurt the feelings of a step-mother who was very kind and loving to them, they kept this desire to themselves.  When their father died, the older sister got a call from the step-mother and let her know that in the attic she found a box of things that looked like they belong to their mother and offered the items up to the sisters.  

The sisters got together that very day and opened the box which began a journey of discovery. In the box were not only photos and mementos but also diaries their mother had written.  Non-stop reading, sharing, laughter and tears until about 4 in the morning when they realized the time but so overjoyed by the realization that for the first time in their adult lives they knew who their mother was, her desires, her experiences, and how much she loved her two little girls.  A joy they share over and over again today as they gaze down on their own children and grandchildren.  

Like so many others today, they keep active journals of thought and experiences for the purpose of sharing who they are with the generations to come.  

There can be many reasons for writing your memoir, but none more important than sharing an ordinary life in extraordinary times.