Joy II

Those JOY bubbles are out and about again!!

Recently  the kids were out for Josh’s belated birthday celebration.  Belated because his third son, Teddy, was born on his birthday and after that wife and new son needed time to recuperate.  So everyone was here on Sunday to celebrate two birth days!!

In the old days, when it was boyfriends and girlfriends and then daughter-in-law/son-in-law and then just the first grandson, we would take everyone out for birthday dinners…..restaurant of the birthday boy/girls choosing.  We continued to do that for a while after Alex was born, but then he got old enough that taking him to a restaurant became a challenge so we switched to dinner at our house, just to keep it simple. 

It is always an afternoon/evening that Pete and I look forward to.  Even though both Josh and Kate live near, it is really hard finding time to be with them.  Everyone is sooooo busy, including us.  So getting the time together for birthday celebrations and holidays is very special. 

This time I had another one of those moments, when everyone was in the house and it was chaos with a 5 year-old, a toddler, and two infants, the food was cooking and toys were crashing around the house…and suddenly I felt my cup running over!! 

These 4 grandchildren are binding this family ever more closely together.  I’m not sure if everyone else senses it as I do…but it is so real that you can almost touch it, if you are paying attention.   We have gone through a stretch of time where Josh and Kate have gone their own ways.  They are so different…those two, they couldn’t be more different if they were the sun and the moon.  They were close when they were children.  Then Josh moved here and started his adult life.  A few years later Kate moved here and started her adult life, and they drifted apart. 

What is bringing them back toward each other are their children.  Those four little souls will keep us all grounded and paying attention…but for Josh and Kate, it is a different binding.  They may not feel it or see it yet, but it is there, waiting for their discovery.  Their values may be very different…their choices may be very different…but they are so bound together through the blood ties of their children that there is no escape.

The JOY bubbles are wrecking quiet havoc today, internally, inside my heart.

Enough said.

Family

I come from an enormously large family.  There are probably larger out there, but by today’s standard, my family count is pretty high.  Mom came from a family of 14 and Dad from a family of 12.  My earliest memories are of having a grand time on the two family farms, the Poff’s and the Hallsted’s, playing with lots of cousins…total number of first cousins combined between the two families….54.

So it isn’t a huge surprise that ‘family’ is very important to me.  It is the fabric of my life.  Somehow it is becoming even more important with the passing of time.  Mom and Dad are both gone now, but my extended family is ever present…even when they aren’t.  

I have cousins of whom I have no memory of never meeting.  There are cousins with whom I was very close as a child, who are now total strangers to me.  There are cousins whom I hardly knew as a child, that now I know somewhat better…and totally adore.  I have cousins who look so much like my Dad that I am startled each time I look in their face.  I have cousins spread all across the United States…most are east of the Mississippi.  And this doesn’t even take into account my brother and his sons and their sons.  

I go through cycles of intense work on the family genealogy.  The Hallsteds I have way back….they first arrived in the United States just 40 years after the Mayflower…and in England, I can trace them to the early 1400s.  

The Poffs have been tougher to trace.  But I did find a great, great, great, etc. grandfather’s grave…a stones throw from the north face of the Cumberland Gap.  That one site told me a great deal about the Poff family…immigrants from Virginia, through the Gap and northward ….who fought in the Confederacy.

I also know that both families, back through history, were farmers and educators.  Our history tells us a lot about who we are today.  Because the Hallsteds came in to the United States through New York I can be pretty certain that they were Puritans… explains a lot about the family conservatism.  And because the Poffs have an obvious history in the backwoods of Kentucky and Tennessee I can be pretty sure that they come from an Irish/Scottish heritage…there are other clues that support my notion.  

One side of my family is so closely tied together, they are like a web that is woven specifically to give us structure.  They were the village that it took to raise us all.   The other side of my family is like the Hatfields vs the McCoys…it takes so little to get them started and eons for them to forgive and forget.  

But the point about these ramblings is that Family defines who we are, whether we like it or not, whether we acknowledge it or not…family is all important to the fabric of our lives.  Cherishing our family, embracing them…even if from far away, or filled with conflict … family is life, in its richest, most affirming content.

Enough said.

Joy

Saturday was such a fun day.  I got a call from a friend.  He asked if he could come over for a visit.  “Yes, of course. “

“Can I bring a friend?”

“Yes, of course.”

As soon as he hung up, I knew he was bringing over a woman!!  My friend was recently widowed.  My curiosity was running wild!!  I picked up the living room and made sure the house looked presentable…it did.  And I waited with ‘ants in my pants’ for their arrival.

Mid-afternoon there was a knock at the door and there they stood; actually a very nice looking couple.  My friend has always been a good looking man.  I’ve known him all my life, literally, and he is still good looking in his late 60’s.  His friend, her name is Nancy, is equally nice looking, a little shorter than he with beautiful white hair, friendly eyes and a big, beautiful smile.  My friend introduced her as his art teacher.  He can’t draw a straight line!!!

We sat at our dining room table and visited for about an hour.  As those of you know, who know me, I went straight for the heart of it.  “Okay, what’s really going on?”  I got the scoop and am evidentially the first in his family to get it….no one else knows he has met his ‘soul mate’…his words!!

They had just reunited after 50 YEARS!!  Mutual friends brought them together and they had known each other when they were kids.  They just met on Tuesday of this week and it was very obvious to me that they are very smitten with each other.  She has been a widow for 4 years and obviously is ready to move on. 

So why share this story…because I am addicted to ‘Joy’.  I just love the emotion Joy.  There is nothing better…no drugs, no alcohol, nothing else in life is as addicting as JOY.

My house was filled with JOY this afternoon.  It was bubbling over in every corner.   It was in every word they spoke to each other and to me, in every glance made to the other, in the sharing of their story and in the anticipation of their future. 

They left and I was bouncing off the ceilings…those JOY bubbles were wrecking havoc!!!  Joyful havoc.

Enough said. 

Friendship…..

I had the most remarkable experience a few days ago.  I was sitting at my desk and just relaxing for a minute when my eye fell upon a stuffed toy.  It is a Puffin given to me by a dear friend from my days, many years ago, of working at Hoxworth Blood Center.  I forget the occasion, but it was relevant to my days of living in Alaska, thus the Puffin.  

Anyway, I looked at it and then wondered whatever happened to MK?  I had not thought of him in years, even though that Puffin has been visible everyday since MK handed him over.  So, thanks to the wonders of technology, I located MK immediately through Facebook.  I wasn’t actually sure….MK now has a totally white beard and head of hair…not what I remember.  But looking through the hair, the beard and the glasses, I could see those warm, wonderful eyes that were familiar, so I took the chance, wrote him a quick note, and asked him to disregard the note if he hadn’t worked at Hoxworth.

By the next morning he had responded.  Yes, it was my friend MK!!  We caught up with each other and as a result I have this warm glow of reuniting with a long, lost friend.  

Memories come flooding back…MK is very tall, and at that point in our lives, when none of us had much money, he always purchased cars that were way too small for him.  He sort of wrapped himself up in them, with his knees under his chin.  It was a miracle that he could actually steer the car. 

MK gives terrific hugs.  If you are ever down, and just need a hug, he is your man.

Another, more intense, memory is the time I asked him to help me facilitate a class on ‘Date Rape’.  Back then I did volunteer work at the local Rape Crisis Center and they had a program they wanted to launch on Date Rape.  MK was very brave and said yes.  One evening we faced a room full of high school students at a local church, presenting the class.  Both of us remember the evening well.

It was nice to know that MK is still married, after 23+ years to his true love, they have raised two fantastic children and that he leads a very happy, fulfilling life.  

I may never see MK again (he lives in Colorado), I may never even make contact with him via Facebook again, he is not an active contributor, but just knowing that he is still out there makes me happy.  

That I think is the joy of Friendship; those people who help make you whole, who hold you accountable, who share the ups and down, who just by being there and having shared some small part of your life, are unforgettable.

Thank you Puffin.

Enough said.

Step-Parenting….

The winter time dark days and long nights have turned my thoughts to more serious topics....

Step-parenting is a topic that I’ve been thinking about recently.  I got to thinking about the topic during Christmas when my step-children were over with their children for Christmas Day celebrations.  As I watched over the gift giving and meal of the morning I couldn’t help but think about how blessed my life is as a result of these children.  Without them I would have lived a ‘childless’ life and would have missed out on all the joy of children.

But those thoughts also brought to mind the many stories I’ve heard of step-parenting gone bad…and even of those that I have lived first hand.

In my own life I have a half-brother.  He and I share the same father but different mothers.  Our father was a kind and loving man.  His second wife, my mother, was a good woman in many ways, but she was not a loving step-mother.  I won’t detail my brother’s life, but at a very young age, as a witness to what was going on, I knew she was unfair and unkind to my brother. 

Now when I look back on my family, I see a pattern that has emerged.  My father was raised by a step-mother.  His mother died when he was 5 years old.  His father remarried a widow with 5 children from her first marriage, and they had 3 children together.  My father’s perception…his reality…was that his step-mother was unloving and unfair.  He felt this way until the day he died, at 87. 

I remember at my Grandmother’s funeral, how Dad debated attending.  She was 97 years old, had had a debilitating stroke when she was 93 and been virtually a vegetable until she died…and still my loving, sweet father, could never forgive her.  The sins of a step-parent have long-lived, unforgiving repercussions. 

My brother and I were not close growing up.  There was the age difference; he was 5 years older than I.  And there was the difference in status in the family.  I was, without a doubt, the princess.  I was my mother’s favorite and while Dad treated us both the same, with great love, my brother never had the family experience that I had. 

When we became adults we had an unusual opportunity to become much closer and get to know each other better.   We both moved to Alaska and turned to each other in the initial months for companionship.  I got to know him well enough to marvel at the person he had become, in spite of his step-mother.

I marveled even more the day of her funeral, while I sat with little emotion my brother sobbed.  I was completely perplexed….how could he sob for a woman who had loved him so little.  But then, she was the only mother he had ever known. 

I can’t help but wonder about the family dynamics in my grandfather's life.  His mother was a step-mother to his half-brother and sisters.  There is no one left to ask.  They are all gone now. 

I also wonder about the next generation.  There is now a step-mother in my great-nephews’ lives.  I can’t help but wonder if the pattern is being carried forward.  What will their thoughts be the day they attend her funeral?

I wonder at this pattern because I am a step-parent, with a profound, personal understanding of the responsibility placed on anyone who carries the title.   The lessons to be learned from a family’s experience with step-parenting are simple.  It is the parent’s responsibility to protect and love their child regardless of the relationship with a step-parent.  If an adult cannot love a child, any child, from the depths of their soul, without prejudice, without favor, then the title of ‘step-parent’ is misplaced.    

Enough said.