CELEBRATION AND COURAGE

Fourth of July and another year that I celebrated in good health, in a place of no bombed out destruction. The Minnesota Orchestra was inspiring on the Excelsior Green. The weather was perfect, as were the comfortable folding chairs I bought earlier in the day from Ace Hardware, with beverage holders for the frozen lemonade to go with the picnic supper. It was moving, honoring the veterans who stood with the songs representing their branches of service. The fireworks were gorgeous (as long as I kept my ears covered.) The crowds were calm and respectful. It was a great evening!

On our recent Holland America Line cruise, we Americans were outnumbered by the Dutch. Everything was announced in two languages, causing me once again to regret my poor knowledge of languages other than English. A majority of the Dutch were well advanced in age, as indicated by the walkers, wheelchairs, canes, walking sticks, and bent backs. But courage! Oh my. Nothing held them back. They made their way on all the walks, working their way up stone steps to enter old houses. Better than what I did. I figure if I’ve seen the inside of one old wooden house, I’ve seen them all, especially if I’m going to experience vertigo making my way down the stacked-up rocks that pass for stairs.

My father defined courage as doing that which one is afraid to do. I try to do that with important things. But for me, another part of courage, and of finally being a grown-up, is admitting I’m scared and avoiding unnecessary risks.

So what does all this have to do with peaceful July fourth celebrations and courage? My chiropractor reminded me that our Dutch companions were of the age that suffered the trauma of the Nazi occupation of WWII. On our last day we visited still-functioning windmills – the kind we think of as belonging to the Netherlands. Among other things, we learned that during the war the position of the blades sent messages like, “There’s a package to be picked up.” With gratitude for my annual good luck, I can only imagine the trauma and the courage of that wartime experience. – of any war. 

Gratitude

The day after Thanksgiving, and I’m wrapped up in thoughts of gratitude. Start with my hosts, Jim and Carol Kane, and their other guest, Carolyn Bevan – a great group to be with, and especially ‘cause we were all willing to talk about our gratitude. I learned so much, especially the effects of survival and loss in the Vietnam War.

Next come my gratitude for my father and mother, and for the fact that I came along last, after my brother, Harvey – eleven years older – and my sister Thelma – eight years older. I know my parents struggled with the depression, but by the time I was aware, things had stabilized and I was spared the worry. My father was fortunate never to lose his job, though, as I understand it, he was paid in scrip for a while. I actually have a piece of that scrip in my “family” file. My father was a generous man, never concerned with accumulating money, but with using it wisely with unadvertised gifts to relatives and friends in need, and contributions to his church and other charities.

As I understand it, he would never have advanced as far as he did at the Bristol Brass if it had depended on him to argue for advancement. It was friends who threatened his bosses that my father might leave if he wasn’t recognized. He was valuable, and they promoted him.

I was the beneficiary of my parents’ belief in education, and their early feminism, when they paid my college expenses and my early years in graduate school. I might not have finished my Ph.D. after I was married if they had not subsidized me then. My appreciation for that also contributes to my annoyance when people who have been similarly fortunate claim that they have pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps and accuse others of being “lazy.”

My appreciation has to extend to the fact that I began my teaching career at a time when Southern Connecticut State University was hiring and paying. (It was Southern Connecticut State College at the time.) I was fortunate that I was promoted to Full Professor just before the state ran out of money and for years we had no new hires and few promotions.

I’m grateful, too, that, when I began my private practice later in my career, managed care had not yet taken over. And now I appreciate my father’s attitude toward money, which I hope I’ve inherited as I adapt to my small, outside-managed-care practice in Minnesota.

My parents chose to live in the not-so-grand suburb of Forestville rather than on the Hill in Bristol with the other “successful” businessmen. I assume it’s because the Gustafson and the Anderson families and Bethesda Lutheran Church were in Forestville. I’m glad they made that choice. All I had to do was cross over into an adjoining back yard to play with my friend Hallie. (Some people suspect our friendship was a model for Dara and Adah’s in “Mrs. Job.”) I’m grateful for the years we stayed connected, though apart, and I’m grateful now for the memories, and the fact that my daughter and I were there several years ago to help witness her move into the next stage of life’s journey – a peaceful move, thanks to Hospice.

I’m happy also that my cousin Eunice was nearby. I remember our playing pick-up sticks, going to Hammonasset State Park with Aunt Gerda and Uncle Everett, climbing in and out the driver’s side window of my father’s car, and being dressed in African clothing when the missionary came to speak. I’m happy I got to see her again in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania a few years ago before she moved on last year.

I guess I’d better stop for now, because the list could go on and on. Someday I’ll delve into all my friendships and mentors after Forestville.

Finally, though, I want to say how grateful I am to the folks who have read and studied “Mrs. Job,” and written reviews on amazon.com.

Dunkin' Donuts

The new Dunkin' Donuts in Natick, Mass was our special stop on the way home to Connecticut from our apartment in Boston. It was 1955 and Lou and I were just married. Today's radio report (August 24, 2008) announced that Dunkin' Donuts is coming to the midwest. My arithmetic tells me that's fifty-three years. Fear of death by atomic bomb is not so powerful as it was then (though perhaps more realistic). The Korean conflict is long over -- finally recognized on Veteran's Day and in the Washington D.C. memorial as the real war it was. Our house with the fall-out shelter inspired by the Cuban Missile Crisis has long belonged to another family. The Vietnam War is over, but the fall-out remains. John F. Kennedy; Martin Luther King; Robert Kennedy, to name only the most frequently cited martyrs, have left their mark on rights for black citizens. Women have made great strides toward equality even though the equal rights amendment didn't make it. We all, men and women, still have a long way to go.

Lou and I, divorced after twenty years, can be grateful for our two healthy children and two healthy grandchildren. Friends remain a strong and powerful source of comfort. Lou's parents have completed their journey, as have mine. My brother and Lou's brother-in-law have moved on. The rest of us are, as my father once said, on our way out, but stretching exit time as long as possible.

The point is, we are all still here, making our small marks on the world. I need to remember that when I look at today's crises. So many years to contemplate and practice forgiveness and justice, and to fall short, 'cause we are human, and to learn from it. At least so far, life for us fortunate ones go on. Each of us can only do a small part toward extending that fortune to others, but we sure do try.

So welcome, Dunkin' Donuts. I guess we are all growing old, hopefully with as much energy as you display in coming here to challenge MacDonald's and Starbuck's, and maybe Caribou Coffee?

Appreciation of friends

I guess this isn't the deepest, or most dramatic or meaningful entry, but it's what's really on my mind today -- how much I appreciate friends.  I especially enjoy the friends who don't get jealous if I don't call or write them every week, but are there and ready whenever I reach out to connect, even after years. And many do the same occasional reaching out to me. It feels like the invisible waves that make cell phones work. You can't see whatever it is, but the connection is there just waiting to be dialed up wherever you, and they, happen to be.

I've felt such gratitude for those connections these past couple of weeks when I was appealing to people for help in marketing my forgiveness books. Frankly, I do hope some sales results will follow, but mostly I am just awed -- actually to tears -- with the caring responses. 

The flip side is the work it takes to figure out what I can do with this blog and with membership on Facebook and suggestions like writing for e-zine. Now I'm also exploring some of the suggestions for publishing "The Book of Mrs. Job." I must say, I do appreciate whoever it was who responded to the question, "How do you become a best seller?" with "... by being a best seller."  Fortunately I don't aspire to that, so I can take time to do all the other things I want to get involved in. 

Here's the bottom line. Thanks