The List

June 8, 2016 at 1:38 am (Uncategorized)


I remember the last time I saw my mother. She was sleeping peacefully and my heart hurt to see how painfully thin she had become. I glanced at the clock and knew it was time to wake her and kiss her good-bye. My dear friend Betsy (who I’ve been friends with since we were 13 years old) kindly allowed me to borrow her car on my twice monthly visits to mom when I could afford to fly instead of doing the 10 hour drive. I would fly from southern California to the San Francisco airport and then I would catch a shuttle and ride north for an hour and a half to Novato where mom was living in assisted care. Betsy would pick me up at the shuttle stop and take me to her home about 20 minutes away and then I would borrow her extra car and go to mom. At the end of my long weekend, we would reverse the process. If I was late getting to Betsy or late getting to the shuttle then I risked missing my plane to get back home. I hated to wake mom when she looked so serene and out of pain, but I only had about 5 minutes before I had to leave for Betsy.

As I started to stand mom’s caretaker, Ally sat down next to me and put a book down in front of me.

“I need help,” she said.

The book was ‘The Purpose Driven Life’ by Pastor Rick Warren. I asked Alicia what she needed help with and she flipped the book open to the chapter that explains how to pray and ask Jesus to become your personal savior.

“What is the problem?” I asked.

“I’m afraid to do this prayer, I’m afraid of what I may have to give up. Will I have to give up smoking if I say this prayer?”

I looked at mom again, and in my mind, I asked God if he seriously wanted me to deal with this in the 5 minutes I had left. I did answer Ally, but it was a short answer and I promised to follow-up with a phone call. I don’t remember what I said to her then or later, but her questions have stuck with me.

I am fascinated by how people come to Jesus. There are so many different stories out there. I have been asked more than once, “What will I have to give up to become a Christian?” or some variation of that question. People inherently do not like change, even when it is good change. We tend to be complacent and comfortable in not making any changes in our lives. Oh, sure, there are people out there who are more adventurous than others, but in general change stresses us. If you look at a list of the top 10 most stressful things a person can experience  it will include things like death, marriage, moving to a new address, a new job, etc. These are all things that involve a lot of change.

I was thinking about all of this during my prayer time the other morning and that led me to question what I personally have had to give up to become a Christian. Here is my list:

Fear

Worry

Hopelessness

Shame

Guilt

The past

Judgement

Conforming

Gossip

Holding Grudges

Anger

Hate

Helplessness

   That’s a pretty long list and I will address each of these in the next few weeks. In the meantime, I have a question for you.

   If you aren’t a Christian, my question is: What are you afraid to give up to follow Jesus?

   If you are a Christian, then I just want to ask: What’s on your list?

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Miscarriage

January 27, 2014 at 9:59 am (Miscarriage, Uncategorized)
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My daughter wants to have children, but she doesn’t want to be pregnant. It makes her angry that she has to go through the weight gain, the taking over of her body, the possible morning sickness, the pain of labor–all of it. How do you tell someone who has never experienced it that it is all worth it? I told her that someone once asked me “What do you love about being a woman?” and that I was overwhelmed with the sweet memories of being pregnant and that first moment when you feel that child move inside you like a winged goldfish and those moments with your baby to your breast looking down at the tiny face looking back up at you. Those tiny moments make up for all the big ones later when you are panicked, because you don’t know where your child is, or you’ve gotten a call in the middle of the night from a hospital or a policeman at the door wakes you up (I’m being extreme here; I’ve never had a policeman at my door). You always hold that baby in your heart that you once held in your body. The love is like nothing else I ever imagined. I would protect my children with my very life, and my instinct to survive and protect myself is strong. My instinct to protect them is stronger. Maybe that is because I had such a good mother.  I took my mother for granted. I didn’t realize until after I had children and after I met adults whose childhoods were a series of horrors that I had a really good mother. I was so loved! That has defined my life. They say we tend to repeat the patterns of how we are raised. We do what we have been modeled to do. I was modeled to love my children. I have not been the best of mothers, but my children will tell you that they know my love.

Being a mom was both the hardest thing I have done and the easiest. Easy because I never had to figure out what my highest priorities were when I was a mom with two very dependent children. I didn’t need a Franklin organizer to help me make lists and prioritize them. My children were first priority. Housework got done, dinners got cooked, but first and foremost, my children were cared for. There was a simplicity and a purpose inherent in that. The surprising thing is that I still have things to teach them, and they still look to me as their example. Thank God! I am a much better person knowing they are watching! Hard because, well, do I really have to explain that part? Even those of you who have never been parents have had parents and you know what you put them through!

I had five miscarriages before my firstborn. I would go to the dry cleaners on Tuesdays, grocery shopping on Wednesdays, my part-time job 4 days a week from 9 am to 2 pm, to the gym on Mon, Wed, and Fri nights and I would have a miscarriage about every 4 1/2 months followed up by a doctor’s visit telling me that statistically my chances of still having a healthy baby were x percent. I told the doctor to keep his statistics to himself after the third miscarriage. I didn’t want them in my head. The first was the hardest, because I was the furthest along. I had heard the baby’s heartbeat and then on the next visit, the doctor couldn’t find it. I had to go through labor.  The pain was endless, because even after the physical pain was over, the pain in my head and heart continued without ceasing. I felt hollowed out. The pain was the only thing filling all the empty space. I can still see the white sheets I left behind as I was moved from one gurney to another, the stains like scarlet flowers spreading over them, beautiful and terrible. The first baby was a boy. The doctors could find nothing wrong with him and surmised that I probably lost him to a “cord accident” meaning that the umbilical cord got wrapped around his neck and cut off his breathing or something along those lines. If he had lived he would be about 30 now. I never named him, because he never was truly mine. After him, I stopped telling my friends and  family I was pregnant so I wouldn’t have to call them when I miscarried. I just kept going to the cleaners, to the grocery store, to work, to the hospital. I remember the first time when the hospital wanted to do x-rays and I was bleeding and miscarrying, and I still made them put the lead apron over my belly to protect the child I was losing. I couldn’t bear the thought of hurting him.

I went a little crazy for a time. I remember having lunch at a table with a few colleagues in the middle of the cafeteria at the large corporation where I worked and discussing some issue that was upsetting to us. I added my frustration with the situation and at some point I remember standing up and pounding the table with the flat of my had and saying in a very loud voice “. . . and I can’t believe I lost a perfectly healthy baby!” One of my friends, stood, took my arm and steered me out the door to the greenbelt where we walked and I cried. It was like that in those days. One of my friends told me that I wasn’t grieving in a healthy way and that I had to let it out, and I was so upset that she was telling me how to grieve that we were never friends in the same way again. I was numb with grief, and as I went through my days, most people had no idea. It was only when I got angry about something else that it seemed to open a portal directly to that river of grief that was dammed up inside me. I remember getting angry with my husband another time and in the middle of telling him how mad I was I started crying, and it was a long time before I could stop.

It is hard to say if I was angrier at God or myself during that time. My friends were all having babies, and the baby showers were unbearable. I stopped attending. I remember that during this time my friend Barbara offered to pay me to do some research for her for a paper she was writing. I agreed and as a result I was in a library one afternoon poring over stacks of books and articles. I remember flipping through a medical journal trying to find the article pertinent to my research and being stopped by some black and white pictures. They were pictures of child abuse, and showed the burn patterns left on the butt of a toddler who had been set on top of an electric stove burner as punishment. Those patterns are burned into my memory. I couldn’t move my eyes from the pictures. I was shaking and sorrowing and angry, and I got up, grabbed my papers and notes and left. I turned my face from the God that would allow people to leave babies in dumpsters, beat them, burn them and neglect them, but wouldn’t allow me to have one. I have always been in wonder of these amazings bodies that God created and treated mine like a temple. 1 Corinthians:19-20 says, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” I had never smoked; I tried it, but couldn’t get past the coughing. During this time of trying to get and stay pregnant, I didn’t drink, I ate organic, I bought mountain spring water, I exercised, I made my own musesli, and yogurt, and baked my own bread, etc. When I turned my face from God, I started doing things that were uncharacteristic of me. I drank a lot more for one thing. I was only drinking socially, but I wasn’t being careful about my alcohol consumption. I stopped making muesli. I stopped being kind to myself.

Then I had one of those Spirit moments.

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Short

February 7, 2013 at 6:26 pm (Uncategorized)
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It’s tax time again. I don’t think there is a yearly event that I dislike more. This economic rut we seem to be stuck in is lasting longer than I think a lot of people were prepared for. As a real estate broker, I know how much real estate drives the economy and didn’t expect any kind of quick recovery, but I’ve had a hard time getting any kind of stability under my feet. I had bought a home that I wanted to move into 2 years after I bought it. I just wanted to get my son through high school first. I promised him “No big changes until you are graduated.” I figured I would move into that home and stay until my kids were a little older and more stable and possibly move my mom into it, because it was a one-story that could have accommodated her. Well, you know what they say about plans. Mine never happened. Mom wanted to stay close to church, friends, and doctors up north. I met Pete and married him. I tried to sell the home so I could be closer to mom as her need for caregiving increased, but finally had to rent it out to stop the economic bleed in my finances. Last year I had to admit to myself that it no longer made sense to be upside down in my finances every month paying mortgage, insurance, taxes, repairs, and homeowners association dues on a home whose rental income didn’t cover all of that. I was also doing the same with the condo I lived in with my son when I bought that house–all of this before I met Pete. After I married Pete, I was working as a broker and the work was getting harder and harder to come by and harder to do, so when I was offered a job with a start-up company with regular pay for consulting fees rather than straight commissions, it seemed like a great opportunity. Unfortunately,  the company wasn’t making enough money to pay me more often than not, but I enjoyed the work and was learning a lot, and it seemed like our big break was just around the corner. That company shut down last year. My husband was getting contracts, but like most people he was accepting less in pay than he was used to, and his clients weren’t paying him on time. All of this is probably familiar territory for people reading this. This economy has affected everyone in one way or another. Long story short. I sold my house last year as a short sale. I also sold the condo as a short sale. For anyone who doesn’t know what that means, I sold those homes for less than I owed the bank. There have been a lot of programs to help people keep their homes, but none of them are any help for homes that you don’t occupy. Those are considered investment homes and none of the HAMP, HARP or “whatever” programs apply to them. Now it is tax time and I am holding my breath that I protected myself enough. You get 1099’s for the difference between what you sold the house for and what you owed the bank. This is not the case with your primary property that you occupy (in the state of CA), but it is the case with investment homes. It’s especially hard dealing with taxes when you are also dealing with hard economic circumstances. It’s especially hard when the rules keep changing and are hard to understand, and sometimes even the experts don’t know the answers. I had a lawyer helping me with the short sales, but that is no guarantee of anything. So I hold my breath. It is a bitter pill to swallow as the homes I just let go would have paid for me to live anywhere I want and have some kind of retirement–they were part of my retirement strategy. Like millions of Americans I now find myself caught short.

You may be asking yourself how I deal with all of this. You may have a hard time reading this, because it is too much like your own stresses. You may be asking yourself how you are going to get through your own circumstances. My mom taught me to deal with life and all of its’ vagaries. Yesterday, I was digging through files in order to put my tax information together and I found a note from mom. She wrote it on a beautiful card with a pen and ink drawing she did of Mt. Tamalpais in 1984. I read it and cried. Mom is still giving me what I need even after her death. If you are struggling, maybe you will find some comfort in her words:

July 9, 2007

Dear Daughter,

   When things get too tough for me I have a standard mantra I repeat, “this too shall pass!” Whatever problems I may be facing today will eventually change–sorry, not always for the better, but they will change. Now, I’m learning to savor the moments of my life that are sweet. I have taken so much for granted over the years. For example, I use to love to walk out the door for my walk around the block–uphill, downhill, whatever. Now, I drive to a flat area to sort of toddle along to make sure I am exercised. I’m learning to pace myself to use the parts of the day when I feel best to accomplish something. Some days I feel good all day, some days I’m not so blessed. My point is, I’m trying my best to live life to the fullest, to be productive, useful and happy daily. Some days are easier than others, but that is life. I am especially blessed with loving children and grandchildren, good friends and a peaceful environment. I’ve wanted this kind of peace and contentment all of my life and have pushed to make it happen. I didn’t do it alone, however. God has been with me every step of the way. Even in my deepest sorrow, trouble, or pain I haven’t felt abandoned. I guess my faith in God and his unfailing love have been the moving factors in my life. I know with a certainty that God will be there guiding my steps even to the end of my life. Trust in God, He will never fail you.

Love,

Mom

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Grief

January 22, 2013 at 12:53 am (Uncategorized)
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In about 9 days it will be a year since mom died. The odd thing about grief is how it sneaks up on you. I thought I would “fall apart” when my mom died. I didn’t think I’d be able to function at all. I functioned just fine and even spoke at her memorial and it was many months after her death before I cried. Relief has been a big part of my reaction. It was so heart-rending watching her final months. I visited her a couple of times a month for long weekends during the last months of her life. I bathed her and shopped for her and cooked for her and fed her and when she decided she wasn’t up to struggling out of bed every day, I changed her diapers. I watched her get thinner to the point of emaciation. I watched her wince whenever she moved from the pain in her thinning bones. I heard her voice growing weaker, and her breath coming harder. I saw the seriousness in her eyes when she had to try harder to put together a sentence or try to understand what I was saying to her. So, yes, there was relief when she passed on. There was a calmness and a peace to my life knowing I didn’t have to anticipate phone calls at all hours, and sometimes waking me from my sleep, from doctors or nurses or caretakers or her friends. I didn’t have to make decisions concerning my mom’s life or death any longer. I cried buckets when my mom was in the process of dying. I would wake up from dreams or nightmares in tears. I remember trying to help her take a shower. I had managed to get her clothes off her and she got her walker and headed towards the shower. As I watched her shuffle in front of me, the tears started coming as I saw how thin and broken her body was. I had to give myself a hard shake and pull my face together, because if mom had seen how upset I was, it would have upset her.  I grieved for years before I lost my earthly mom. Having said all that, the grief hurts more now than it did a year ago. I thought I must have done most of my grieving while mom was dying, but now I know that such a huge loss takes time, because it cuts you so deep that you can’t take it in all at once. You can only handle bits and pieces at a time. Now  I truly understand what it is like not to have her with me in this life. I miss her so!

It is ironic that mom prepared me so well for her death. She was the one who taught me about God and about Jesus. God is my comforter in the face of my mom’s death. I was reading the bible as she was dying and I was being discipled by a dear woman in my church as she was dying and I could never have made it through this last year without God’s help, without my faith, without my mother’s faith.  My mom gave me the one most important thing that I would need to get through life with or without her–she taught me how to have a relationship with God. I must continue that work, my mom would want me to. God surely wants me to.

One of my friends asked me about accepting Christ into her life. She said she was afraid she would have to become “this perfect Christian and give up things like smoking.” If she only knew what a common fear that is! I told her that God is not calling you to be perfect; he is calling you to perfect yourself through Him. He sent us Christ, because we can never be perfect. If you accept Christ and ask him into your life and your heart, if you open that door he is knocking on, the rewards will be beyond counting. You will come to know a peace and a joy that you have never before experienced, and that you can’t get from a cigarette or anything else on this earth. If you give up smoking or anything else in your life, it will be because you want to, but don’t think you are going to be perfect or that you will never sin again. We are human and it is our nature to sin and to be imperfect. The only way to overcome who we are is through Christ. He is the bridge, the gate, the liaison, the one who intercedes between us and God.  Accepting Christ and becoming a Christian is not a single act; it is a process. Your decision is a single and singular act, but you will spend the rest of your life understanding what it means to be a follower of Christ. You will have to take up your cross daily. You will still live in the world and the world is often a hard place to be. You will never be alone or without your Father in heaven, His son, and the Holy Spirit. Please, if you are struggling with accepting Jesus into your life as my friend is, don’t let fear prevent you from doing this, but let love guide you there. God loves you and wants to have a relationship with you, a deep, intimate relationship. He wants to be your Father and for you to lean on Him, turn to Him, and abide in Him. Fear does not come from God, but God is the remedy for fear. Love comes from God. His love for us is shown through Jesus Christ. If anyone reading this is struggling with the decision to accept Jesus Christ, I hope you will turn your face to God and open that door. It is the most important decision you will make in your life. Thank you, mom, for showing me the way.

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Outspoken

October 11, 2012 at 11:51 pm (Uncategorized)
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My mom was outspoken. It was embarrassing at times. My mom sat at the head table with my new husband and I at our wedding reception in 2006. The pastor who married us also sat at that table. My mom was very interested in the fact that he was affiliated with the southern Baptist convention and as we ate dinner she asked him why the southern Baptist convention was against having women in the ministry. Yes, she did. She asked this at my wedding dinner.

Mom may have embarrassed me at times, but she also gave me courage. I am not afraid to express myself, and I am not afraid to ask tough questions, and I am not afraid to drag the skeletons out of the closet. That is very easy to say when I live in a country that ardently supports freedom of speech. Today, I want to talk about the freedom to express yourself and the courage that sometimes takes. I want to talk about Malala Yousafzai.

Malala’s story begins with her parents. Malala was named after Malalai of Maiwind, a young Pashtun woman who fought victoriously alongside the Afghan leader, Ayub Khan against the British in 1880. Today Malalai is a national folk hero, a sort of Jeanne d’ Arc to the Afghans. Malala was given a warrior’s name. I don’t know anything about Malala’s mother. Cultural restrictions prevent her from appearing or speaking in public. Surprisingly, these same restrictions have not stopped Malala from expressing herself. Her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai has had a huge influence on her. He is a poet, school owner and social activist. He owned and ran one of the last girl’s schools to defy Taliban orders to end female education in the valley of Swat.  Ziauddin encouraged his daughter to blog about her experiences when she was just 11 years old. She blogged anonymously and her story was picked up by everyone from the BBC to the New York Times. At 11, Malala said, “I want to become a doctor. It’s my own dream, but my father told me that you have to become a politician, but I don’t like politics.” Her father replied, “But I see a great potential in my daughter, that she can do more than a doctor. She can create a society where a medical student would be easily able to get her doctorate degree.” I think most medical students would take an exception to the word “easily,” but that is because most don’t know what it is like to fight for the right to an education–even a fifth grade education. Malala had a peaceful life when she was eleven. She lived in the Swat Valley, an area of Pakistan that tourists came to for its high mountains, beautiful lakes and waterfalls, and lush greenery. Swat is populated primarily by ethnic Pashtuns or Afghans. It is also a region dominated by fundamentalist Muslims who are pro Taliban. In the summer of 2009 the Pakistani army tried to stabilize the area by clearing out the Taliban, and the Taliban retaliated. The result was the uprooting of about 1.2 million Swat residents. Ziauddin did not want to leave Swat. He had taken in his extended family who lived in the countryside in an attempt to keep them safer. He did not want to leave his people and felt called to stand with them. He said, “It may be my idealism and you may call me a crazy person, but when I am asked by my friends, why are you not leaving Swat, so I usually tell them that Swat has given me a lot. Now when there are hard days in Swat, and Swat is in trouble, so as a good friend, I should not leave Swat.”  Ziauddin spent many nights away from his family, because he had been targeted by the Taliban for his social activism and felt his family was safer without his presence. Ziauddin’s school had supported his family for 14 years, but he was forced to close it and eventually, Ziauddin and his family were also forced to flee, but in separate directions. Ziauddin fled to Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan and Malala and her siblings lived in 4 cities in 2 months as they traveled between relatives. The Taliban took over Swat. In a 2009 documentary, Malala is filmed saying, “They cannot stop me. I will get my education, if it is in my home, school or any place. This is my request to all the world, that you save our schools, save our world, save our Pakistan. Save our Swat.” It is easy to forget that this poised young girl is still so young. In the same documentary, her father says, “As we say, that a mother does not give milk to a child when it doesn’t cry, you will not have anything, especially in the third world countries like us. You have to scream for everything.” Six months after Ziauddin had to close his school, and 3 months after he had to separate from his family, they were reunited and returned to Swat. The Taliban destroyed more than 200 schools, but their school was still intact. Their home was also intact. The school was reopened and Malala continued her education. Malala and Ziauddin continued to speak out. “I have the right of education,” Malala said in 2012 during a CNN interview, “I have the right to play. I have the right to sing. I have the right to talk. I have the right to go to market. I have the right to speak up.” Malala was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize in 2011, and then was awarded Pakistan’s first National Youth Peace Prize by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani. She led a delegation of children’s rights activists sponsored by UNICEF, and has made presentations to politicians in her own country. She changed her aspirations for becoming a doctor. “I have a new dream to become a politician and serve my country,” she said. She has also said she still feared the Taliban, because the leaders had not been caught. Malala is now 14 years old. Last Tuesday she was on her way home from school. A Taliban gunman walked up to her school bus, asked for her by name, and then shot her in the head and neck. She remains in critical condition. Ehsanullah Ehsan, a Taliban spokesman is quoted as saying, “She has become a symbol of western culture in the area; she was openly propagating it.” He then added that if she survives, the Taliban will certainly try to kill her again, “Let this be a lesson.” Pakistani Prime Minister, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf is urging his countrymen to battle the mind-set behind this attack on Malala, “She is our daughter.”

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Flexibility

October 9, 2012 at 11:41 pm (Uncategorized)
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My mother was a young woman in the 1950’s and 1960’s. She gave birth to me in 1957 when she was 21. She lived through the age of Women’s Liberation and was told she could “have it all.” She could have a successful career and a marriage and children. She could “bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan.” Women of her day became SuperWomen. The liberation of women didn’t just threaten men, it threatened the very concept of what a woman is and can be. Divisions were formed between women and by the time I was a young woman in the 1970’s and 1980’s it seemed like women were disassociated from each other or in outright competition with each other. Women have always been very good at relationships, especially with each other. Women in many societies and cultures throughout time have gathered together to cook, make things for their homes, and raise children. There is even a scientific basis for women’s greater focus on relationships; studies on the brain have shown that certain parts are bigger or more active in women than in men–the parts that have to do with relationships. Females outperform males in recognition of emotion or relationships among other people. Studies done in 2008 by Peg Nopolous, Jessica Wood and colleagues at the University of Iowa, show that one part of the brain, a subdivision of the ventral prefrontal cortex known as the Straight Gyrus or SG, is proportionally larger in women than in men. This area of the brain is involved in social cognition and interpersonal judgement. To go one step further, these studies found that the larger the size of the SG, the higher the scores on tests of social cognition and interpersonal awareness, regardless of sex and regardless of the fact that men’s brains tend to be 11 to 12% larger than women’s brains. Women also tend to have a larger deep limbic system than men. On the plus side, this allows women to be more in touch with their feelings and better able to express their emotions. On the negative side, this leaves women more vulnerable to depression, especially during hormonal shifts. Many women are chuckling at the last part of my last sentence. When is a woman not going through a hormonal shift? We experience that every month while we are menstruating. We go through 9 months of that during pregnancy and then shift again after childbirth. We not only go through menopause, but apparently also experience something beforehand called peri-menopause that can last 10 years! But back to mom. My mom was a big Women’s Libber. She tried to teach me that I could do it all and have it all. I was ambivalent toward the message. At the time it seemed that not only were men and women at war with each other, but women were at war sith other women. Women who didn’t have careers were defensive that they weren’t doing more. Women who did have careers were defensive that they weren’t home raising their children. I remember my pastor bringing stories about successful men in history into his sermons. I told him that just once I would like to hear a story about a successful woman who also managed to marry, stay married and have children.  Careers for women have opened up and equal pay for equal jobs is better than it was in the 1950’s, but along the way a lot of women just became exhausted. The women of my generation have struggled to balance all their newfound freedom with not trying to be SuperWomen. Like all women of every age, we search for fulfillment. Even now, I have a hard time defining what that means to me.

If I had to pick one word that meant fulfillment, it would be flexibility. I’ve done a lot in my life. I’ve worked since I was about 15. I’ve worked for large corporations as an employee and I’ve worked as an independent contractor for commissions. I’ve had regular paychecks coming in and I’ve saved as much as I can of a commission check, not knowing when I’d have the next one. At this point in my life, I want flexibility. I want to be able to count on regular income, but I don’t want a 9 to 5 job. I will trade having paid vacation time for being able to get on a plane to be there for the birth of a grandchild. I will trade one week paid vacation time for being able to take a 2 unpaid weeks to go on a cruise with my husband. I want choices about how I spend my time. As I’ve said since the beginning of this blog, I want to use my God-given gifts and talents, not the abilities that my manager needs to get through the latest project. I am happiest when I am in control of my time. I have a long list of things I don’t need. That list mostly has to do with stuff. I don’t need a lot of stuff. I need choices.

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Chicken

July 10, 2012 at 4:06 am (Uncategorized)
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I learned how to ride a motorcycle about 2 weeks ago! Yes, me the big chicken! I told my husband that I wanted “experiences” rather than “stuff” for gifts and my birthday is coming up shortly, so he enrolled me in a course at our local Harley-Davidson dealer. The course is sponsored by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF). Some of the courses are done at community colleges here in California, but the course at the Harley dealer turned out to be just amazing, because the classes are smaller and you get more riding time.

I was very curious about the possible demographics of this class. Would I be the old lady in a class of young men? There are 5 days of “school” consisting of 2 evening classes in a classroom, then 2 days of riding classes at another location and then 1 more evening class where you watch a few more videos and take a written test. When I walked into the classroom on the first night there were 4 other people in the room. Gregg was about my age  and had just bought a touring bike from his neighbor. Robert is in his 20’s, had a lot of very well done tattoos, and was very quiet. Greg (with one g) looked to be a little younger than I. Amber is also in her 20’s, and has a long commute which she wants to do by motorcycle. Okay, so at least I wasn’t the only female in the room! Then in came shaved head Erik who I would guess to be in his 3o’s, and Will who is in his 20’s and already owns and rides a Harley. I liked the mix of ages so far. Then in walked two very attractive, stylish females who looked like they could be close to my age. I discovered later that Mo and Aida are both just slightly younger than my 54 and they both ride on the back of their husbands bikes. Wow! I’m starting to feel a little more comfortable. Five men and four women. Four people in their 50’s and the rest younger. It is interesting to observe the demographics of riders. In California there are a LOT of motorcycles and riders my age are abundant.

The first night of class was interesting. We talked about risk and we were asked to think about how much risk each of us is willing to accept. A motorcycle is less stable than a car and you are less protected than you are in a car. Are you willing to ride in the rain? At night? How about on a freeway? This course is all about risk—-assessing it, managing it, and minimizing it. The second night we spent a lot of time going over where the controls are on a motorcycle and what they do and how to negotiate turns and actually ride. I was thoroughly confused by the end of the night. Do you “roll on” the throttle to accelerate or “roll off” the throttle, and what does that mean anyway; are you rolling your right hand towards yourself or away from yourself? I tried to let go of my doubts. I am very visual, and I decided it would probably make more sense to do it than to read about it. I was the student who always aced her chemistry lab work, even when she was struggling with the classroom book work.

The next day was Saturday and we had to be at the course at 7:45 am. Class would go until 2:30 on the course and then we would return to the classroom until 6:00 pm. I had been talking to myself for weeks to just “relax and enjoy myself.” I had been telling myself to “have fun.” Friday night I prayed. I prayed I wouldn’t hurt myself. I prayed that I would get over my fear. I arrived Saturday cotton mouthed with anxiety, but positive that I could work through the fear. I’ve done it before. The great thing about being 54 is I can look back and see all the times that I have faced my fears and been the better for it. The MSF courses include motorcycles and helmets. You need to wear long pants, long sleeves, over-the-ankle boots, eye protection and gloves.

We were seated on the bikes by 8:00 am. I ride on the back of my husband’s bike, so this isn’t totally foreign to me, but it was both thrilling and scary to be sitting there with my hands on the handlebars. Our bike at home is a touring bike that probably weighs about 1,000 pounds when we are both on it. We would be riding on Buells for this class. The engines are just under 500 cc and I think that bike weighs around 500 lbs. It is not a small lightweight  bike, but it also isn’t at the top end of being big and heavy; it is a good place to start and transition to just about anything you want to ride. At first we just learned where the controls are, how they work and some basics like how to get and off safely, the steps for starting a bike, and also for turning it off. Then we kept the bike in first gear, and let the clutch out a little so we could slowly walk on the bike. By 8:30 am we were riding slowly with our feet on the pegs! I was still nervous and scared, but it was starting to be fun! We did all kinds of exercises that day. By noon I had woven back and forth through cones in first gear and that quickly became one of my favorite exercises, and each time I did it a little faster. We had also learned how to go around curves, and of course we spent a lot of time starting and stopping. It takes both your hands and feet to stop a motorcycle, so it’s not as easy as it sounds. The bike did go down once. I was going slowly through some cones and I was looking down at them and I stalled the bike and it went sideways underneath me because I was turning it around the cone I was looking at. The motorcycle goes where you look. It reminded me of skiing. You tend to go where you are looking when you ski, and it is the same with a bike. If you look towards where you want to go, your body tends to turn that way, too and the bike (or skis) follow. We learned how to ride seated with our backs straight and our heads and eyes up. The bike went down because I was looking down; I got off, but I did burn my leg slightly on a hot pipe. I had jeans on, so it was very minor. Usually I ride with chaps, too, but it was very hot on the course. By the end of the day I was still the queen of stalling when I was getting going, but I wasn’t stalling so often when I came to a stop. I was feeling more confident and safe on that bike, I was having some moments of fun, and I was exhausted. I was more than happy to get off and go sit in the classroom for a while. Riding a motorcycle is a full body experience and I was tired, but mostly I was mentally tired. Almost 7 hours of concentrating on what I was doing, learning new things and managing my fear had drained me. By the time I got home I was excited to tell my hubby that I did it, but I wasn’t through being scared and I was so tired that the idea of getting up in the morning and doing it all over again (but this time for almost 9 hours) was just too much to think about. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back, but I was sure that I didn’t want to give up. My common sense told me that the second day would be better, because I knew what to expect and was already developing some skills. I just wished I could get rid of the pit in my stomach, and relax. I prayed myself to sleep.

I was back on the course at 7:45 am Sunday morning. The first exercise  was a little challenging because we were shifting gears as well as doing turns and stopping and starting and I wasn’t comfortable with that yet, so I got all tangled up in my head trying to remember everything as well as just being too nervous. The instructor made me stop over by him and told me to take a deep breath and take it easy. After that it was better. By the next exercise, I actually started relaxing. I had an amazing, fun day! I learned how to do all kinds of curves from hairpins to wider turns to s curves. I learned how to ride over a 2 x 4 in the middle of the road. I learned how to do a quick swerve to avoid something in the road. I learned how to do slow tight figure eights so I could park anywhere. I learned how to go faster on the bike. It was an exhilarating day! Towards the end we all had to do a fairly complicated course one by one and we were all given points for mistakes. The purpose of this exercise was to get the smallest score possible and not more than 20 points so that we could pass the riding test and get an exemption from the riding test at the DMV when we went to get our licenses. I scored one of the higher scores in the class, but at 16 points, I passed! In fact we all passed! I managed to stall going into the course and that made me mess up my first slow tight figure eight. All in all I was pleased that I passed and I know what I need to work on. The next evening, I passed the written test with only 1 wrong answer.

Am I ready to go buy a motorcycle and start riding? Hmmm, interesting question. I have a Harley sticker on my helmet that says “It’s Your Life. Don’t Just Go Along For The Ride.” I am VERY glad I took this class and I don’t think anyone should be allowed to ride without taking the class. It is such good preparation for just about anything that could happen to you on the road and you develop such a good understanding of what to look for and to consider to keep yourself safe. I definitely feel more confident about my own skills and abilities to ride safely. I also know that before I get on a motorcycle and drove on a street or in traffic that I need a lot more practice. I love riding on the back of my husband’s motorcycle. I have a much deeper appreciation for what a skilled rider he is and all he does to keep us safe. If I never rode my own motorcycle I wouldn’t consider the class a waste. I’m a better companion on the bike knowing what my husband’s challenges are. Having said all that, I would like to get my own motorcycle and go on rides with my husband. There is a freedom and a thrill in riding your own bike. I’m not that excited about riding with the traffic in southern California. I’d rather ride on back roads and highways—-say in Montana! One step at a time. I’m out of work right now, so it seems very frivolous to go buy even a starter bike which would probably be $3,000 to $4,000, but hopefully I will start working soon, and I can buy a bike this year. I’m proud of myself for learning something new, overcoming my fears and finding there is still some adventure left in my soul. Isn’t that where I started with this blog? I remember that I was thinking about what I want and need to do with what is left of my life. I think I want and need to do some motorcycle journeys. VROOOOMMMM!!!

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Motorcycles

May 3, 2012 at 10:49 pm (Uncategorized)
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Motorcycles. Just the word will conjure up all kinds of images and thoughts in the average person’s brain. My mom hated motorcycles. That is probably my fault. When I was 15 I was visiting my Uncle Tom and Aunt Audrey in Oregon for the summer. They had 3 boys, John who was the same age as me, Steve who is about 2 years younger and Chuck who is about 4 years younger. I took the Greyhound bus up and spent the summer picking strawberries with my cousins. I received my very first paycheck! When we weren’t working, we were playing hard; baseball games where you tried not to hit the ball into the pigpen, mud fights, bicycle rides into town, etc. I also canned strawberry jam with my aunt and made Coq Au Vin for dinner one night which entailed having my cousins kill and clean a chicken which I then had to pluck. You dip the chicken into hot water and then pull the feathers out if I remember right. What I do remember is that wet chicken feathers stink!

 One of my cousins had a friend who had a motorcycle. I think his name was Randy. He offered me a ride on the back. I got on and we took a ride down a dirt road. We got to a big steep hill (I think it was man made) and Randy decided to show off with me on the back. He punched it, and we started up this hill and never made it to the top. The engine cut out and the bike tumbled back to the bottom of the hill. I ended up on the bottom of the heap with Randy and the bike on top of me. I was fine except that my right knee hurt. It has never quite been the same. My mom was not happy with me. In high school I had a boyfriend who had a motorcycle. I was not allowed to ride on it. One time my boyfriend picked me up from school and gave me a ride home, because I had to walk up a big hill. My mom saw me and I was grounded. Up to that point motorcycles were just trouble for me!

 When I was 47 and divorced, I decided to try dating. I hadn’t really done a lot of dating before I met my first husband at the age of 19. Dating at the age of 47 was strange new territory. I was so nervous at first, because the guys I was dating could also conceivably date women who were 20 years younger than me. I worried about what they would think of me. That didn’t last long! After a few dates, I was much more concerned about what I thought of my dates. I realized my own worth and also that I wasn’t willing to give up the freedom of living life on my own for just anyone. I wasn’t sure that I was willing to give it up at all! I was very happy with my little life, and I remember very clearly thinking that if nothing ever changed, and I never met the right guy, I was happy with my life. I took a break from dating for 2 or 3 months, and then I decided to give it another shot after reading the book “He’s Just Not That Into You.” This was a quick read and made me laugh, but it also had some valuable nuggets of information. I decided that it would be nice to have someone to share my life with, so I put profiles on two internet dating sites. I had been on for about a week when I got a wink from Biker Brett who lived in another state and had nude pictures of himself on a Harley on his profile. I checked out my other dating site and found an email from Pete Rides Harley. “Great!” I’m thinking at this point, “It’s biker night!” Put some sarcasm into that thought and you’ll know how I was feeling. I read Pete’s email and looked at his profile and what I saw was a very sincere man who seemed comfortable in his own skin. He wasn’t trying to say the things that women like to hear (like so many of the other profiles I read). His email led to more emails and phone calls and a date and the rest is history. Pete now rides his Harley with me on the back.

I remember the first time we went riding together. I told Pete my motorcycle history and I also told him that if I didn’t feel safe on his Harley, he would never get me on it again. When I met him for our first ride, he had bought me a complete set of fringed black leathers, black leather gloves, black leather fanny pack and of course he had a helmet. I was impressed! We had a great time and Pete has always made me feel safe. We traded in his Fat Boy for a Screamin’ Eagle Ultra Classic Electra Glide touring bike. We have done many runs up and down the California coastline (always a beautiful ride) as well as a ride from here to Colorado Springs, and some smaller runaways for weekends. I love the freedom of our Harley runaways! You have to pack light. You will be wearing a helmet, so you don’t worry about your hair. You think about sunscreen not makeup. You can’t get tied down by a bunch of stuff when you travel on a Harley. There isn’t room for it. It’s just me, my amazing husband and the bike—-and sometimes four layers of clothing. We have ridden in rain, wind, and even snow (although we wouldn’t ride in snow on purpose—we had to go through a few patches of unexpected snow when we went to Colorado). It’s so much more of an adventure than riding in a car. You aren’t just looking at the world through a window, you are experiencing it!

Pete has always said that I am a natural and I should take safety classes and get my own license. He is absolutely sure that I would love the experience of piloting my own bike. He may be right, but he also makes me feel safe. He has been riding since he was 15 starting with dirt bikes. He is a very experienced rider. I don’t see how I will ever be that good when I am starting at such an advanced age. Truthfully, I’m a little chicken, too. I’m a little nervous about learning to do something I’ve never done. I’m a little nervous about getting hurt. I was that way when I learned how to ski at the age of 46. I remember talking to myself for weeks in advance and telling myself I was just going to “relax and enjoy myself” while I envisioned myself calmly skiing down gentle hills. It worked, and I had a great time. The only problem was I never had the money to follow up and keep doing it, so I’m still not a skier. If I take motorcycle lessons, will the same thing happen?

I’m reading a book called “The American Motorcycle Girl’s Cannonball Diary” by Cristine Sommer Simmons right now. She did the Cannonball Run in 2010. This is a coast to coast endurance run and she did it on a 1915 Harley-Davidson. I’m working on my head by reading and being inspired by other women riders. Cris is about my age. She is married to Patrick of The Doobie Brothers band. She has been riding since she was a teenager so she is another experienced rider, but I think I need to just do this. I want to take the Motorcycle Safety Course this summer. I’ve spent too much of myself holding back from the things I want to do. I just need to do this!

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Stuff

April 26, 2012 at 11:44 pm (Uncategorized)
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First of all, Sheila’s procedure went well, and she was sent home from the hospital 24 hours later. No stroke this time! She is doing very well.

It was a very long day. Her procedure took many hours. I think she went in for the procedure about 10am. I was on the freeway trying to figure out the snarl of interchanges to get to the USC hospital. It took me about 3 hours of driving to get to Aubrey, pick her up and get us both to the hospital. Sheila’s procedure took approximately 5 hours and we were allowed to see her in ICU at around 4pm. That means when we left the hospital, we were once again in rush hour traffic leaving downtown Los Angeles. I think I spent 5 to 6 hours in my car that day and most of it in rush hour traffic. Add in about 5 hours at the hospital and it was a very long day. I did get to take Aubrey to dinner. It was wonderful to get to know this beautiful 24 year old woman.

It’s just weird to think that I am now the older generation. I have a few aunts and uncles older than me, but when I was talking to my Uncle Marty letting him know how Sheila is doing, it struck me that he and I are the keepers of the family memories for a lot of our younger family members. Uncle Marty is about 3 years older than me. I still remember being a little kid with him, and I didn’t see him much after I became an adult, so it is just weird to me that we are both in our 50’s now. My younger brother just turned 50 also. It doesn’t seem like that much time can have passed. Okay, now I know I sound old, because that is what us old people always say!

So as an older people who is supposed to have gathered some wisdom by now, what would I say to those who are younger than me? Let’s start with: stuff isn’t important, people are. We all have stuff, but are you in charge of your stuff, or is it in charge of you? I come from a family of hoarders on one side of the family. The stuff was saved and piled up until it took over the house, and there were pathways through it. I think about my mother and how she dealt with poverty and dirt and chaos by getting an education and trying to clean and put order to her surroundings, and she went from that to college to marriage at the age of 20, and then married into a family of hoarders!

I was born at a Navy Hospital in Barstow, because my dad was a marine stationed at Twenty Nine Palms. Mom says the doctors had to break up their card game and scrub in because when she got to the hospital 3 hours after her water broke, my head was crowning. My dad didn’t come to the hospital to visit us for three days. He drove home and shared the news with his mom, and did whatever he did. He was told by his commanding officer to buy a layette and go bring his family home. Then he volunteered for a tour of duty in Okinawa. It seems he wasn’t ready to be a father. Mom and I lived with her parents for a short time. My mom got a phone call in the middle of the night from my dad’s mom. She was in labor and needed to be taken to the hospital. Gigi, as we called her, never learned how to drive. She took the bus to work and to get around. I asked her once what she did if one of her kids got hurt and needed stitches. She told me she put pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding, and then slapped egg whites on the wound, because as they dried, they would pull the wound together and then she’d get on the bus with her kids and go to the doctor.

My Mom loaded me up into the car in Agua Dulce and drove to Gigi in Hermosa Beach. This is about an hour drive barring traffic. My grandmother gave birth to a little girl. Here was the problem. Grandma was married, but her husband had run off with a Guatemalan lady and had not been living with my grandmother. He had been gone about a year at that point. Here is the other problem. The baby’s father was black. Gigi was married to a white man. We are talking about the 1950’s so this was a big deal at the time. Gigi adopted her baby out. My mom was the only one who held her before she was gone. My mother told me about this little girl who was the same age as me when I moved back to southern California just in case she ever contacted me. That little girl who is the same age as me is named Tammy and she found us shortly before grandma died. Unfortunately, the first time she saw my grandmother was when she was lying in her coffin. Thank God these are different times. Nobody cares who Tammy’s dad was (although I wish we could find him for Tammy’s sake). For all of us, she is just family.

I’m sure I met the grandfather who left Gigi at some point. I’m not really sure. My blood grandfather died before I was born, so this was my grandmother’s second marriage. She had one son with that husband; Uncle Marty. Uncle Marty likes to say that he has 7 sisters and 4 brothers (or maybe it is the opposite), but he is an only child. Grandmother had 3 children with my grandfather, and Marty’s dad had children with his Guatemalan step-mother. You can see why we don’t worry about bloodlines in our family. It’s just too complicated to figure out. I also have a cousin on my mom’s side of the family who was adopted out, because she wasn’t married. He found me when I moved here. My mom had told me about him, too. I don’t think my family is terribly unusual. Babies out of wedlock have always happened. There was just a lot more shame associated with it back then. The moms were hidden. The babies were birthed, and adoptions were done secretly. I’m glad there is not such a stigma any more about this, because it is the mothers and their children who took the brunt of the shame, not the dads.

My mother moved in with Gigi after she gave birth. My grandmother was a hoarder. Her home was piled with stuff. The dirty pots and pans and dishes were piled on the back porch. Clothes were everywhere. My grandmother had two teenagers at that point in her life and my Uncle Marty who was three years old.  My mom washed all the dishes, did the laundry, folded it and put it away and put that home into order.  She also found a job at an explosives factory and worked. She also took care of me. She taught me how to clean and bring organization to chaos. She taught me to throw away. I am not a collector, and I don’t need a lot to make me happy. Don’t get me wrong. My mom also loved shoes. She loved the colors, the designs, the textures, everything. I have too many shoes. My shoes are all in clear plastic shoe boxes neatly stacked in my closet. My boots are all side by side on the floor of my closet. My house is not perfect, but it is clean. I know where things are most of the time. The hardest part about marrying my husband was merging my household with his. Living with his three daughters for the last 6 years has been even more difficult, because I didn’t raise them and they don’t keep a house like I do. I taught my children how to keep our house. Pete’s daughters were young adults when we married. We thought we would be empty nesters by the end of our first year of marriage. It is now almost 6 years later and the youngest is finally moving out. I love his daughters, but I can’t wait. I don’t want to live with people who don’t keep a home like I do any more. I gave up trying to teach adults who didn’t want to be taught. I miss four of my children, and I can’t wait to see them when they come to visit. Our youngest child is finally going to give me the opportunity to miss her.  I need to miss her.

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Miracle

April 23, 2012 at 11:52 pm (Uncategorized)
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When I was growing up in southern California, my family all lived relatively close by. We gathered for holidays and family events; grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins from both sides of my family. It wasn’t unusual to have a house full of family. I was the first grandchild on my father’s side of the family and one of the older female grandchildren on my mother’s side, so I did a lot of babysitting. The only cousins who were my age were all males, but since I was a total Tomboy, that didn’t bother me.  What did bother me was getting stuck with the babysitting. I only remember getting out of babysitting once to go fishing with my male cousins; I could only come along if I cleaned all the fish. I gladly did it for a few hours of salt air down at the beach.  Cleaning fish sounded like child’s play compared to trying to control a houseful of wild cousins running all over the place, getting into things they shouldn’t, and doing things that they weren’t supposed to. I never knew how much my younger cousins looked up to me until I had grown up and moved away. Like most younger kids, my younger cousins looked to us older cousins as being cooler and having more freedom and being wiser. They envied us. I never knew that. I thought I just had more responsibility than they did, and wished I could play and run around and not be in charge. Many of my younger cousins say that I inspired them. I just thought I was doing what I was supposed to do.

Tomorrow my cousin, Sheila, is going into USC Medical Center for a second operation on her brain aneurysm. She had something called a basal tip aneurysm at the end of August. Apparently, when these type of aneurysms burst, there is a less than 1% survival rate and the vast majority of survivors have major problems afterwards. Sheila is a walking talking miracle. She spent 3 weeks in a coma and then had a stroke when the doctors were trying to help her with her aneurysm. That put her in ICU and from there she went into rehabilitation and then home. She was more tired than usual (what a surprise!), had some vision and speech problems, but she has steadily improved and if you didn’t know what had happened to her, you wouldn’t guess there was anything out of the ordinary going on in her life. She has kept her sense of humor and her faith in God through it all.  She inspires me.

I had no idea that all of this happened until October—2 months after the fact. My once close family has been blown to the four winds. Sheila’s parents are gone, first her dad and then her mom 7 years ago. Her mother (who was my dad’s sister) died three days after my dad died. I remember getting the phone call from my step mom on a Friday and then later in the day a phone call from Sheila that her mom had a stroke and was in the hospital. On the following day, a Saturday, I drove the hour to go visit her in the hospital and she seemed to be doing okay. I fully expected her to be released from the hospital to go home. On Monday I got the phone call from Sheila that her mother had died. My once close family now lives everywhere from Maryland to Oregon and from Arizona to Montana and lots of places in between. My grandparent’s generation has passed on and my parent’s generation is a lot sparser. I still have some younger aunts and uncles left, but it is a strange feeling to become part of the older generation in my family. There are only a few of us left down here, which is why my cousin Sheila went through a brain aneurysm without much family support. Her daughter, Aubrey, was 23 and living with her mom when it happened. I don’t know how she got through all that. Nobody called me, because that was during the last  6 months of my mom’s life when I was going a little crazy trying to make sure my mother was getting the care she needed. From August to October we were dealing with hospitals, nursing homes, serious declines in my mother’s help and hiring of extra care for her. That was when I started traveling up to see her twice a month instead of once a month.

Now Sheila needs another surgery. She had this thing called coiling done a couple of days after her aneurysm burst at the end of August. Basically, the doctors go in through a vein in her groin and put a strand of surgical material into the aneurysm to stop the bleeding. The strand coils around itself and forms a clot. Apparently, when Sheila had an angiogram a month ago to get images of her brain, the doctors found that the original coiling compacted and her aneurysm is reforming. I am explaining this as it was explained to me, and I am not a doctor. The purpose of this new surgery is to do some preventative coiling. The risk is that she could have another stroke, a heart attack, clots, or even death. When you are a walking talking miracle like Sheila, when you have already dodged a major bullet, you worry that your luck has run out. You worry that all the hard rehabilitation work you did to come back to pretty darn close to where you were before all of this happened will be lost. You are scared. 

This time I am going to be there when she wakes up. This time I am going to pick up Aubrey from her home and sit and wait in the hospital with her while her mom is having surgery. This time I will pray for another miracle.

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