Musings on Mother’s Day

It is the sign of the changing of the season when Mother’s Day rolls around. All the nurseries open and flowers are available to purchase for the eager gardeners. I am one of those people who wait all year for this. I used to take off from work and go to the nursery to purchase my annuals. I would walk around grinning and nodding to other shoppers who found this ritual to be a total renewal in the faith that life continues on. For some women, this is a time to celebrate children. I am not sure why we have to pin point a specific day for the honoring of child birth, other than to sell cards and flowers. I think it is more important to honor people all the time. But some would say that is my sour grapes speaking.

I am childless. Oh, it is not for lack of trying. I just never was blessed. I went through a lot of the fertility tests and did all the things that were supposed to help. But my husband at the time was not of the same mind, so we never delved into all the reasons why. That is to say in a delicate way, I am not sure if the issue was with me. When the conversation comes around and people are pontificating that they have no regrets, I pipe up that I do. This is the one thing in my life if I had a do-over, I would. I wanted children since I was a child. I had names picked out. I kept things for them to give them when they came into my life. There is nothing I can do to change that now, but I do feel I have the right to be regretful about this.

I have had wonderful children come into my life. I am still in contact with some of my favorite students who were mid-teens when we first met. Many of them now have their own families. I am very close to my two nephews and love them to pieces. But they are in Florida and only talk on the phone with very sporadic visits. I am hoping to end up living nearer to them at some point.

My husband’s family is pretty close and yet, there is a huge gap between his feelings of connection with them. We spent this weekend in the hospital because his father had a huge scare. He seems to be ok, but then, we are not being told the whole truth by his older brother. When we visited Dad without anyone else in the room, he told us he has end stage renal disease. He also said he is not planning on making his 94 birthday which is in October. I am not sure how severe the situation really is as he is not on dialysis and it has not come up in conversations at all.

The real issue this Mother’s day is his Mom. She has dementia and probably Alzheimer’s. Joe does not spend time with his mother and so we only see her with the family and she is pretty quiet but very nasty. This concentrated time this weekend really highlighted how bad she has gotten. The stress is probably what put Dad in the hospital. They have been married 64 years. She is totally dependent on him and yet is horrible to him. So the family is facing putting her in Memory Care where she will get the care she needs and my father-in-law (FIL) can get stronger and have a good remaining life. You can see the pain and guilt it is causing my FIL, but something must be done as she is becoming dangerous. She is wandering in the night, and has other issues. He deserves better care for himself.

My thoughts are how sad that this is how she is going to end her life. She has three children, none can help her now. She is horrible to everyone as the confusion of dementia is scary. Her children see her as a twisted monster, and not the mother who gave them life. She will spend her remaining years alone as even with the family close, she has no clue as to who we are sometimes. Yesterday as I sat with her, she was peaceful and enjoying our visit. But she was lost, and repeatedly asked where her husband was. When we were sitting with Dad in the hospital, we called and his sister put her on the phone so she could talk to him. His face completely changed and you could see and hear the love they still have for each other. This whole weekend has reminded me how precious relationships are.

My Mom died when I was 22. I have been without her for almost 2/3 of my life. There have been many moments in my life when I miss her. I am lucky that I have had great female friendships that have connected me with the nurturing part of my soul. I am by large, a nurturing person too. I connect with Mother Earth so strongly and get my strength from her. My garden is my refuge, my plants and animals are my children. So today, I honor the part of us all that sustains and gives us strength to grow, to love and be loved. I honor the Mother in us all.

 

 

Fear fighter

Spring on Lake Ontario

When my parents were growing up, there whole world was tenuous at best. They came into the world at the end of World War I and by the time they were young adults, they were facing World War II. In between there was the depression. My mother’s parents separated and my grandmother moved back to the farm in West Virginia to have help with her two girls. My father’s brother and father died tragically in a car accident on a rail road track at the hands of a fast train when my father was 3. I watched my father’s business dissolve and he lost sequent employment until he finally was forced to retire without any pension and live on social security. I was with my mother as I witnessed the ravages of cancer take her at 59. I was bedside when my father crossed over 11 years later. I lived through the time as he adjusted to only having one leg. He had an amputation when he was 54. Their life was based on fear.

They lived in a time when how things look was more important than how things were. They were taught propriety and keeping up appearances at all cost. My parents were extremely judgmental. My father felt it was his duty to evoke his opinion on every difference in a person including the color of their skin. My mother was appalled by any person whose appearance was less than perfect especially weight. She never had an issue and was blessed with the ability to eat like a horse and remain tiny.

Their marriage started out with all the trappings of being very wealthy and successful. My father was excused from the war because he was a sole heir. My mother began her family with the comfort of domestic help and doting grandmothers. All of this was lost by the time I was five and by the time I was 14, they were living in an apartment and my mother was employed for the first time since she was married.

They lived in fear and they were angry. Both of them drank every night. Their ritual of cocktails, as they called it, was their escape of their world. It began as a habit of glamour and social acceptance and became their island of peace. Unfortunately, the results of their self-medicating turn ugly and their anger was often leashed upon me. I was the last at home as my other four siblings had moved on with their lives. My mother and father instilled fear in me and they taught me to be judgmental as it was necessary for survival at the time.

I am writing about this because I am working very hard on letting go of fear. It is extremely hard for me and I have to work on it every day and every minute. I have learned techniques to establish a sense of safety when I recognize that fear is creeping in. I hear my parents’ voices with their exaggerated warnings. I hear their voices also in judgment. This is the hardest thing to cut out as I replay their criticism willing. And while I am getting better at not uttering out loud comments about people, I struggle mightily with silencing the critical and nasty voice in my head. It is because I believed them.

I had to focus on why the two people in this world who had the power to influence my being more than anyone would be so cruel. It is because they lived in such abject fear. It is their fear, not mine. It was their world, not mine. I can forgive them as I understand and I can release their grip. I would not have been any better in their circumstances and I think few would. But it is not my truth.

So every day I am allowing the cleaning out of their thoughts. Sometimes it is painful but with the understanding that I am no longer buying into it, I can release it. This is a slow process as it is very deep. I had thought I had gotten past the need to do this, but then I realize that it is a step process. And this is what I want to share more than anything.

When I started the work I am doing on myself, it was overwhelming all that I had to deal with. I am not one for going slow. As I peeled layers back, new raw sores would appear. There were times when I would think I was never going to get through and eventually I did. I am sitting here in the realization it was and is all perfect in its manifestation. There were some huge hurdles that needed to be jumped and then removed. And with every jump and successful landing, I became stronger and mightier. I am quite confident that the path is peppered with more and will be through the rest of my life. It is called being human. But every time my feet hit the ground again, I am fortified for the next. I realize, actually as I am writing this, that I am not as afraid. There is movement forward when you work at releasing the things that weigh you down. Ah, the pun of what I just wrote. We will save that for another time.

Winnie and Me

I just watched a wonderful webinar with Dr. Bruce Lipton who wrote the Biology of Belief. He is a biologist whose work with stem cells led him to some very interesting discoveries. Some of you may know his work. I read the book a while ago and was not able to “get it” all. Tonight’s webinar is in a series of Wednesday night offerings. Two weeks ago there was one that was like a wake up slap that led me to more understanding about the connection between the brains older systems and the connection to neuro imprinting to the way I live and why.

Tonight Dr. Lipton was talking about the fallacy that we are controlled by our genes. The way we are is not genetically predisposed at all. Matter of fact, according to the good Doctor, genes are not at all involved in why we do the things we do. He says that it is from the imprinting done in utero and up to the age of seven. I will try to explain his theory. And it is substantiated theory which I am personally engaged in understanding.

He explains that you take stem cells and put them in a petri dish, they will multiply exponentially until they create a new body of cells. He says the material they grow the cells in is basically man made blood and that the human body is a living petri dish. The correlation is the same for growing new cells and hence we survive biologically, growing new cells multiple times, just like the plastic petri dish.

But he says that what is different in his studies is that he could impact the cells in the petri dish by changing the environment. No frontal cortex there. In previous things I have read, and also in this webinar he talks about stress hormones and the impact they have on the body. We know that being under stress the body releases chemicals to react and to survive. There is no “thinking” when this happens. It is automatic. Matter of fact the thinking mind stops and the brain goes to a lower system that automatically “knows” what to do. He said they observed a change in the cellular makeup when they introduce stress chemicals such as cortisol even in the petri dish. This is just a real quick overview of what he was saying.

He said something I did not know and that I think was terribly important and connects more in the arena I have been studying. He said that an unborn child learns stress before he/she is born if the mother is stressed. The chemicals are transferred into the placenta and into the child. So a child whose mother is under stress will impact the child automatically, imprinting the circuitry that creates fear stimulating the fight, flight or freeze mechanisms. And once the child is born, that impact is continuous up until the age of seven. And why? Because children fire a different brain wave called theta, which is the same brain wave that accesses the subconscious in hypnosis and deep mediation.  Children are truly sponges and are constantly pulling information in and imprinting it in their subconscious. So if you live in an environment that is chaotic, abusive and violent as a child, imagine what that does. And as an adult, you may cognitively think you are not upset, or that things are not bothering you, but your body is off doing its own thing. And viola…

So I said something in a previous post about my science project. It continues and this week was not as successful as I had hoped it would be. I employed a tool and some other techniques to help stabilize my reactions and my physical well-being. Nope, did not work. I know this is going to be a long process because there is a lot to retrain, but I was disappointed in myself very much. I had a horrible day on Monday but thought I had everything under control. But I did not, and I reacted poorly which ended up making things worse. And even when I THOUGHT I was good, my body was preparing for battle. And so, I erupted at the wrong thing. Which afterwards, my physical condition went to hell. My gut instead of shutting down went the other way. I never know which it will be, which is fun. I have not slept well and now my left ankle is as big as a tree and pain is coursing through my body. Just in case you may not know, inflammation is a marker for stress but it often appears after the initial dosage of stress chemicals assaults the body. So, for me, there is a cyclical pattern, which believe me, I want to stop. I explode or get terribly depressed or a combination of the two, I tighten up all my muscles causing cramping and the inability to breathe deeply and my digestion is interrupted, followed by intense Psoriasis and arthritic flares which appear anywhere. Dr. Lipton talked about how babies who are stressed in utero often have digestion issues because the blood flow goes to the extremities and not the visceral organs. Instead the abundant cortisol transfers into fat and deposits in the abdomen to protect those organs. Hello…. I was born with huge digestion issues that were only resolved by giving me small feedings of  goat’s milk as an infant. My digestion or lack of it has plagued me my whole life. And my Winnie the Pooh shape is a testimony to the production of said deposits.

I know I have not discovered anything new. There is a lot of information coming out on all of this. There are a lot of reasons why but the answers to stopping it all seems to vary. But it is just a relief for me to know there are reasons things are the way they are. And I continue to learn.

Heros in my head

There are voices that are in my head which today I want to pay homage to. When I started writing this last night, it was mostly to heal something that happened. When I reread it this morning, I saw great value in the application to help someone who is struggling with self-worth. Maybe by taking pieces of me in chunks, I can see their contribution to the whole and celebrate this value. It turned out to be a great exercise and I recommend it. Now to some of you, this may sound as wacky as the day and that’s OK. You are welcome to read on or not. This was really an exercise for me. Putting ideas down on paper is a tool I use to validate experiences I am going through. It is a process I have used for over a year now and it has done wonders for me. This journal piece is in regard to some special people who have been part of my life because they are my life. These women vocalized their pain and love for me as I went through the past year. It is time to honor and I want to thank them. I must ask for their forgiveness as well.

I am going to start with the youngest member of the group. She is a little red-haired, freckled faced sweetie who just wanted to love and snuggle with anyone and everyone. She would run around with her soft ringlets of crimson and gold and sparkling green eyes and offer kisses blown off her little hand. She had been born the last of five and had little fear. But something changed. The grown up me does not know what happened but something changed very early on to terrify this little one. She went from an outgoing cherub to a scared child who hid in closets and whose memories at some point included fear and loneliness. Many pictures of her pre-kindergarten show a grimace and a look of distrust in those green eyes. Her once baby pudgy body had grown to make her more round than she should have been for that age.  She only wanted to be protected and loved and somewhere, someone failed that. I cannot tell you now what happened, only that I am aware of something on my fringe of my grown up memory. It can stay there as I do not think knowing will help change anything in my current life. It was at this point my body printed the withdrawal reflex. It is this autonomic response that causes me pain as an adult. I still withdraw when frightened and I do not even need to be aware of what frightened me. My body pulls in and up and then freezes. Babies do this naturally when you tickle their feet or startle them. As an adult, it manifests in leg cramps and muscle pain especially in my feet and legs. When really bad, the cramps migrate. I stop digesting food properly and cannot take deep breaths.

But in her honor, this is the little girl who still gives me the ability to believe in magic. She is the one who gets so excited at something new. She brings joy and laughter that is as honest and pure as a crystalline stream of water. She can sit and watch animals and they know they can trust her. But she is also the most vulnerable of all the people who I am. I did a terrible thing last month and subjected this little one to her tormentors. Even though I, the adult, thought I had it covered, she did not. And she pulled up and froze. I did not think about her and the muscle cramping and pain that I have been in the last two weeks is a manifestation of that withdrawal. I knew something was up, but had no clue because I thought it was all behind me. I am sorry I did not protect her, and it really was not a good thing because of the damage I did to my physical body. I am grateful for my therapist and guide who knew exactly what happened and worked on the muscle groups in order to release the freeze. The thing I did not connect was that the event was over a couple of weeks ago and I really thought I had it under control. This little one was hell bent on telling me she was pissed. I gain a ridiculous amount of weight in a very short time span and was in so much discomfort to the point again of suffering with nightly charlie horses. I also was starting to want to hide, which is a method she used when hurt.  As I listened to the explanation of what was going on, I really felt the wounded inner child in me. Tonight I am hugging her and saying I will not do that again. I am all she has and I put her in a place of great harm. Memories are more than thoughts and if anyone tells you that they are harmless, they are wrong. They imprint on every system and cell of your body. Many bring you joy, others….not so much

There is a young girl who is my next hero. She is the one who of all the women who suffered the most. I am not going to reiterate her trauma. But I honor her because she is the performer of my life. She is the artist and the songstress. She is the one whose creativity was so integral to who I am. It was her voice that brought me awards and accolades. I lost her for a long time and I am slowly bringing her back into focus. With the good, came a lot of bad. But I had a lot of support to deal with the trauma. She is once again playing music. She is the eye who looks through my camera. She is the one with all that happened to her, who still sees beauty in so many things and people. I honor her for teaching me forgiveness. I look forward to playing and creating together again.

The next hero in my life is the Warrior Princess. This is the young girl who at fifteen stood to her tormentor face to face and called him on his abusive behavior. She was very brave. She stood up for justice and fairness in many aspects of her life. She was an advocate for the underdog. She champion causes for a better tomorrow. She drove cars without a license and recklessly enjoyed mischief. She has the greatest sense of humor and saw the futility of worry. She was the one who befriended the outcasts in the school yet had many who called her friend. She was the center of the theater crowd and loved an audience. Although popular, she too hid. She was often more comfortable in isolation for that was when she did not have worry about who she was and what she was living in. She needed a release and escape from a domicile of explosive and violent behavior. It was at that age she learned to put up a facade. This was the young woman who started to explore without fear. She was an outlaw whose behavior often was dangerous and risky. She hitchhiked; she roamed the nights and often partook in dubious and nefarious activities. But she was brave and would try things without caution. She experimented solely on interest to learn new things. But I honor her because she is the voice who spurns me on when I am feeling timid. She is the one who says, “go on, you can do it.” She is the one who helps me get up every time I fall. And she is the first one to laugh at me when I am being a fool. But it is her freedom that teaches me to be brave in my current life and makes me want to go on and be what I am destined to be. I honor her for all the lessons I learned from her mistakes and the strength to overcome what she did. When I stand tall it is she who holds me up. At times, I still see the glint in her eyes and smirk on her lips when I look in the mirror.

The next hero is the mother in me. Granted I did not have my own children, but there is a nurturing being inside me who practices motherly skills. This is the soul who suffers the most from the loss of family. It was this one who wanted to reconnect and was most disappointed from the family reunion. But it was she who said it was what it was, forgave and moved on.  This woman brings Grace and love to me.  She is the one who looks at the soul of someone and offers a loving embrace. She is the teacher, who sees the potential of her charges and with guidance and support develops the student to reach their potential. She is the one who is at the center of my caring, the woman of my heart. She is a survivor and is the one who teaches me forgiveness. She is the being that is most connected with Mother Earth and breaths with the soul of plants and animals. This is the one who sees.  It is her voice that cried out to me to get help and heal. She is the one who fights to protect from harm the only being she really had the ability to take care of. She is the one who is teaching me patience.She mourns and grieves and loves and forgives.

I am not sure who will be next. I was thinking when I wrote this that the grandmother voice was learning to speak. But I think I have a lot more to learn and experience. So I honor all the players in this saga of life called me. “She is Jane and that is just fine with me.”

When Your Mother Says She’s Fat

I am borrowing this from a post I saw on facebook. It is an amazing piece of writing.     By Kasey Edwards

June 23, 2013

When Your Mother Says She’s Fat.

Like a Motherless child……

I came to an impasse recently. A true bottle neck of my own making. Problem was I did not know what it was, what was causing it and since that information was missing I had no clue how to get rid of it or go over the wall. Two guides had sensed and had attempted to help me eliminate this issue. I was the only one who could take care of this block and I knew I had to do something soon as it was undoing a lot of the work I had done. Seems the block was visible to some people in my life, and their gift was to make me aware. But it was mine to figure it all out and work to get rid of it.  Not a small task by any means. I am writing about it in hopes that maybe someone else might get something from it. I am also writing because writing has become crucial in my healing process.

Yesterday I went to see my new friend and teacher who is a Healing Touch Practitioner. She discovered something that was apparent and discovered a while ago by another dear friend, teacher and therapist in my circle. Something was amiss on my left side. He discovered it when he walked to the left side of me and saw my face change. He said it is my most vulnerable side for taking in cues. Most of my pain manifests also on my left side. I have struggled mightily to figure out why that side and yesterday we figured it out. The rest of my story takes a huge leap of faith to accept and I do. It was a true ah-ha moment.

This new practitioner is able to see when she is doing her therapy. She sees energy fields and other images about the client she is working with. She explained what she saw after I related what I felt, which was profound. She had been into the session for a bit when she placed her hands on my chest. She had done this before but yesterday the effect brought tears to me. I was very under and my eyes never opened, but the tears rolled out of the corners. I felt very deep sadness, like someone was gone. When it happened she left and she moved on to do other things. She came back to my heart chakra and I felt I could not breathe. There was a lot of small details that were happening, but the gist of this is not relevant to the outcome I am writing about. I had to open my mouth to get air but it was in the same deep rhythmic cadence I had set when I went under. She moved up my head and again, the tears flowed. She came over to my left side and cupped my hand in hers. She did this for a long time. She then hand over hand went up my left arm and stopped with her left hand on my shoulder.  Usually her hands exude large quantities of heat when she does her work. But when she got to my shoulder, her left hand was ice cold. I felt cold on my left side as well but it was short lived. She continued on to do some more work and finished with her grounded of me and the session was over. It took me a long time to come back up to the current world.

We sat and I related how perplexed I was about the crying. I told her I felt grief and then when she walked to the end of the table I thought she had left me. She had actually never left me. She said when she first met me, she thought that my energy sphere around me was off kilter. She explained yesterday, there was actually another being or energy incased with me. It was attached to my left side. She had severed it. Hence the cold.

Purposefully, we have not talked about my past. She had never been privy to the dark secrets that I have uncovered recently. She knew little of the relationship with my parents. She does that on purposed. She talked about how this being was attached and not necessarily for good. She sensed jealousy or envy is a better word. She said this person had loved me but had a lot of remorse. She also said this person was a negative influence on me.  She also said this person needed to go and so she severed it from me. She said more but it is personal. The tears again welled up in my eyes and they began to flow again. I knew exactly who it was. It surprised me because I never would have thought it. The right side of your body is the paternal side, the left is maternal.  The energy being was my mother.

My friend had no idea who the being was and had no idea my mom was gone. I am not going to rehash my relationship with my Mom. It was not good. She did her best, but I have been carrying a lot of anger. I was still listening to her harping and negativity, her incessant complaining about my imperfections.  How could I avoid it? She was right there. She literally was the voice in my head.  I have sensed for the longest time a sadness about something that was not my doing and did not fit in my history. I cannot explain it more than that. Her father abandoned her and the family when she was in her teens. I felt the emotion of being abandoned by a male but was always confused because I was not abandoned by my father. Oh no, I had to take care of him until he died. It was a relief when he left this world. When I started therapy and meditation, I struggled with breathing. I could not take a deep breath. I can now, but during the session, I could not. My mother was a heavy smoker and died of lung cancer.   I also was feeling other issues from her childhood which she never resolved and made things a bit confusing for me. I think if I had the where-for-all to dig, I would find much that would explain things. But I am not going to.

The one thing I did have to do was deal with the anger. I have dealt with other issues quite successfully and thought I was pretty much set on the big anger issues. I have been blocked and unable to release this chunk of anger because I had no idea what was the cause. And I was blocked because if I had released the anger on my own, I probably would have severed the attachment on my own but I did not know it was there. Not being good at releasing anger, I am doing it in small bits and by hand writing it on paper. I will burn the paper soon when I feel I have completed the exercise.

There is already a sense of freedom and relief. Because I am still working on my anger, I am not going to say my world is suddenly glowing and daisies are popping up. But I do sense less negative talk. I have been shocked by the veraciousness of my words on the paper. I also have switched from just spewing my anger to including forgiveness in my handwritten words. I know this is where the real healing comes from. So I am beginning to feel some peace. I also feel more mature as I have felt often like a very young child and did not understand why. During the session after she released the attachment, she said I stretched my head up and smiled. She said I had grown up a bit.

For those who are into numerology or just coincidence: My other died at the age I am. It is 36 years ago she died and she was 36 when she gave birth to me…. for the first time.

Dinner with a child

I had the honor last night dinning with a friend and her small charge. I have to tell you about my friend first to understand why the small dinner companion was so charming. My friend has a tendency to pick up and become involved with people who she who would do better to run from. She wants to fix things and will aid almost anyone who asks no matter the consequences to herself, which is usually disastrous. There is no saving her from her misfortunes. I have learned to separate my own desire to fix and only offer an ear for her to bend and some opportunities to help me around my house in order to earn some income. She will never change and although I feel bad when she is in the clutches of a self-made catastrophe, I know she will move on only to perpetuate the cycle. Her latest endeavor includes a man living in her house that has multiple children all over the place but is in partial custody of a five year old. Hence, my dinner date.

This little peanut of a girl has seen more than I have in my life. She has eleven siblings, all who are scattered and in the system. I do not come from this culture and I have great difficulty with accepting it. These young people will grow up in most cases only to continue in this world very troubled. So is the little one who graced my world yesterday. She is about four feet tall, wiry in stature with a sweet smile but eyes that hold secrets. She instantly took to me as she hid behind me to meet Bishop. They were eye to eye and Bishop barked his deep hello and scared her. I forget my dog can be intimidating to someone her size.

We went to one of my favorite restaurants that have high wooden booths to sit in. Once sequestered, the world disappears and you can really talk and enjoy your company while savoring a nice meal. This little one busily colored while my friend chronicled her latest disaster. Her current involvement, the girl’s father, was involved with another female and my friend was crushed. The man has thirteen children and three are only siblings of this little creature. I was so confused as my friend tried to explain the family dynamics. I do not get it and I certainly do not see this as a good situation. But then my friend accepts this as a natural state of cohabitation; the procreation of children with multiple partners. I have nothing against having children by any means, but I totally slip off the non-judgment bus when these offspring are in foster care of some sort. You want them; you made them, take care of them.

While my friend went through her misery of her situation, our conversation would be broken by some little recant of a serious issue with the coloring. She slowly warmed to me as I sat in rapt delight with her sweetness. She will do fine in the world with the right guidance. She could charm a snake and probably learned already to do this for survival. My friend was telling me she is going for intelligence testing and is already ADHD. I saw none of that. She is a little girl, full of energy and brimming with smarts. She only needs the right direction to get her out of the world she may end up in, the right challenges to overcome and the right support to help her grow. I pray she finds them and is not boxed into some category and labeled. We do that with brilliant children because they are so charged with energy it takes a ton of adult energy to keep them going. It is easier to medicate them than to work at developing challenges and tests that bring them success and a sense of accomplishment. Such is our education system, a world I had to leave.

She has a wonderful appetite and wanted to taste everything that was on the table. She sat and smiled, relishing each morsel of her chicken fingers. Her face was focused on the task and remnants of her meal remained on her cheeks and shirt. As she sat back, her chocolate milk entrusted to her small hands, she looked satisfied. Then she knew as we munched she would have our full attention so she began to entertain us. This young thing is not any of the labels so hastily charged to her.

But when my friend leaned over to cut her chicken for her to cool, there was a huge shift on her countenance. It was startling. My friend had her dinner knife and was wielding it fairly close to her nose. And this was only because the little one had leaned in to smell her food. Without looking up she uttered in a voice not of her own temper, “You better not be waving that knife in my face.”  She looked up only to see my startled face gaping at her. I asked her to repeat what she said, and sure enough she did, her nature completely changing to a deep serious tenor. Then she popped a piece of chicken in her mouth and returned my stare. I looked at my friend who acknowledged what I heard with, “she has seen and heard a lot.” She is five years old and a little pixie.

We continued our meal, dotted with the small voice who chimed in with great proclamations of the immediate surroundings, the food and her thoughts on the world. I never heard the common decree of small humans; “when I grow up I am going to be….” I did not ask either. She recanted her numbers and letters, done with enough confidence that I know she will be fine in the arena of academics. That is if they take the time to listen and work with her. But she comes from an environment where school is a burden; a world that is not embraced by her family.

She will succeed if they allow her to.

In Honor of my Aunt

MY Aunt B

This is also in honor of my Aunt who passed away this spring. The image above is from her funeral. I designed the flowers to represent something very personal, that my brothers and sister did not even know. Both my Aunt and I share much in common.
I was named after her. My mother and father named my four siblings with Spanish names in honor of his side of the family. I always thought they had glamorous names including middle names in honor of relatives from Spain They are spelled and spoken in Spanish. My brothers are Jorge, Jose and Jaime and my sister is Judith…with the J’s all silent h sound. I am Jane….clanky, hard J. Most of my life I felt even more so alienated from my family because of this simple difference in names. But my middle name is in honor of my Aunt, and my first name is in honor of my mother and their Aunt.
My brothers and sisters all look similar. They are darker in skin and hair with dark eyes. All but one still have dark hair sparked with silver. My one brother has the gift I will get. He has pure white hair now. I possess the fairness of someone from Scotland, which is where my mother’s family came from. I was born a redhead with blue translucent skin with abundant freckles. My eyes are my mother’s and my aunts. Both possessed clear ice blue eyes. Mine are the same ice shade only in green. Pictures demonstrate the resemblance to my maternal side.  Again, as a child, I felt the delineation in coloring as something separating me from my immediate clan as even my cousins are more common in appearance to my siblings because they are from my father’s side. As I typed this, I still feel the pull of the hurt and isolation that this difference caused.
I am feeling today the grip of family because today is Mother’s Day and because my brother sent pictures from the funeral. I do not think I am done grieving as if there ever really is an end. I still miss my mother who died when I was 23. And I miss my Aunt who lived a long life. I think it was wonderful for her up until my Uncle passed and then her world crashed. I am sad for that in many ways.
My Aunt and Uncle did not live close, so anytime they came to visit it was an event. It was my Aunt who would embrace my qualities my mother criticized me for. My aunt was heavier, but I am far the tallest and largest women in the family. I can remember my father’s cruel name of “Aunt Fatty Lou”. She was very pretty, and had a ready smile. She would reach out to me and continued all my life until she became incapacitated. I would write her as a teen and young woman and she would offer encouragement that only an Aunt can give. She and her sister were estranged by the time I came along. My mother’s haughtiness offended my Aunt as she would flaunt their current affluent status but in the end, my parents died poor. My Aunt and Uncle were millionaires. Truly! The sisters came from working stock from Detroit, raised for the most part my Gram. Their father had run off after WWI and ended up dying in an asylum. My mother never shared her past and it was not until her death and my going through her personal affects that I discovered the truth about their father and their relationship.
My aunt embraced her world, for whatever it had at the time. She and I shared the love of words. She was a reporter since high school and had won many awards for her articles and interviews. She had national fame and her column about television programming was syndicated. She was a pioneer woman, working in a man’s world of journalism. She was the quintessential career woman of the 50’s and 60’s. She and my Uncle traveled together for work as he was famous sport writer and both worked for the Detroit Free Press. It was a glamorous world and my Aunt remained humble, even though she dined and interview many celebrities of the day.
She and my Uncle traveled and loved the southwest. They settled in retirement to a summer home in Michigan and a condo in Corpus Christi. They traveled and took seminars. My Uncle was a musician and played the bag pipes and clarinet in several bands, including a clown band. My Aunt followed his gigs and was his own roadie. She loved it. She was devastated when he fell over one day and left her permanently. She never recovered until she joined him six years later.
Whenever they came through on a whirlwind tour as I called it, they brought pictures of their travels and I saw a lot of the world through her eyes. My aunt loved photography and was pretty good at it. They came to visit me when Joe and I first met and she had helped with support during my divorce when no one else did from my family. For Christmas that year she sent hand embroidered initialed napkins for my new family, which was here way of sending approval. When she condensed her homes, I was the recipient of all her valuable treasures. She knew they would be cherished and passed on in the family.
My aunt gave me many blessings. I also share some of her misfortune. She was diagnosed at twenty-one with breast cancer. In those days, they removed the breast and also gave the woman a completed hysterectomy. It is thought that the gene causes both cancers. I started when I was twenty-one with issues in that arena as well. I have had two serious close calls with ovarian cancer and have a high probability for the gene. The tests were inconclusive. I am a high proponent for early detection for all women and encourage everyone to take care of their “girls” with mammograms. Because of her hysterectomy, she never had children. She had us instead and especially me. I would have loved to have lived closer as she would have been a great Mom. Her style and mine are much more in tuned. My mother would hold her motherhood over her sister and I am sure my Aunt felt hurt. I understand that. I get the “you wouldn’t get it, you’re not a mother” all the time.
I share my Aunt’s love of writing and communication. I share our love of photography. She was so proud of me for being a teacher in those fields. We also shared something that showed up later, psoriatic arthritis. For her, it manifested very much later in her life and the effects did not slow her down until she was in her late 70’s. Her hands were crippled which impeded her love of crafting. This too was something we shared and sent each other handmade gifts for years. We shared the love of gardening. She would write about her planting and send pictures of their gardens. I sent her flowers and plants so that she would always have something green in her apartment in the last years. She taught me to be a good aunt, and I think I am. She has pointed me to a direction to support the two nephews who I love dearly in a more connected way. She has shown me the act of motherhood does not come from just the womb.
And to the wreath: It symbolizes the circle of life. Within that arrangement, I requested two things. I requested Irises for my mother and they had to be purple as those were her favorite flower and color. The pink roses are me and my connection to my Aunt. She had a passion for the color pink, just like I do. You would not know it from her house decorations which were actually a blend of earthy southwest décor and my Uncle’s preferences. But she loved pink. She wore it when she was married and for any fancy occasion. The wreath says family on it. But it should have said “Màthair”. I will leave that for you dear reader to interpret.