Pieces from the Past: Kite Strings

“When I think about why people have children, I realize how little it should have to do with the future. If, before any children are conceived, we knew that our reward for raising them would be perhaps several phone calls a month, a very occasional visit, and the sense of having once been important in their lives, we might not do it. But if we realize that the rewards are given during the raising, we will calculate the cost differently. My children have taught me more than I have taught them, given me more joy than I have given them, and their not being present or even much aware of me now does not alter this.” from The Journal Keeper, by Phyllis Theroux Right before my son’s senior year in high school, my friend gave me a framed reprint of the poem titled “Children Are Like Kites.” You may know it -the gist of it is that you spend years preparing children to “get off the ground”; you run with them, patch them up when they’re torn, pick them up off the ground countless times. You let the string out a bit at a time, until finally they’re airborne. At last the “kite becomes more distant, and you know it won’t be long before that beautiful creature will snap the lifeline that binds you together and it will soar as it was meant to war - free and alone."

By the time you get to this part of the poem, you’re choking back tears. Even now, some 12 years later, I get teary eyed reading those last few words.

But then there’s the final sentence: Only then do you know that you have done your job.

I believe that’s true. It’s in the letting go that a parent really comes to know what they’re made of. If you’ve done your job well, when you read that very last line you’ll dry your tears, stand up a little straighter, take a deep breath, and move on.

Most of you know that my husband and I are only children, and in terms of feeling responsible for their parents happiness, I think the burden on an only child is rather great. My parents and my husbands parents were as different as night and day in their child-rearing styles and philosophies, but the outcome on each side was exactly the same. Both of us always felt the need to do whatever it took to make our parents happy, even if that might mean giving up something we desired for our own lives.

When we got married, we had a kind of unspoken agreement - if/when we had children, we would not stand in their way, would not make them feel as if our lives depended on their constant presence, not inspire guilt or worry about what we’d do without them.

We would let them break the kite string and soar.

We tried really hard to do that, and I think we succeeded pretty well - in fact, sometimes I laugh at just how well we succeeded. Our only son left home at 18 to attend school in Florida,  traveled halfway around the world on several occasions, then met and married a young woman from a completely different culture. He lived in Florida for 12 years before moving to Texas three years ago.  I’m sure our parents were stunned by his epic journey, and they probably wonder why in the world we let him do those things.

There’s nothing easy about this process. There’s no magic pill you can take to stop missing your children, to keep your heart from aching when you’re apart on birthdays and holidays, to prevent you from wondering what they’re doing or how their day is going, if they’re in a bad mood or on top of the world. I realize that I’ve always been overly involved in my own mother’s life, and because of circumstance, will become even more involved from now on as she draws closer to the end of it. Sometimes it hurts that I will probably never have that kind of relationship with my own child, that I will likely rely on the “kindness of strangers” to shepherd me through old age.

But on closer reflection, I realize my son’s fierce independence actually provides me with a kind of gift my parents couldn’t give me - it allows me to be responsible for my own life in a way their neediness never could. So I watch my son plan his future and take charge of his dreams, and I too learn how to soar.

Phyllis Theroux said it best in the passage I quoted at the start of this piece: My children have taught me more than I have taught them, given me more joy than I have given them, and their not being present or even much aware of me now does not alter this.

Watching a beautiful, strong, colorful kite waving proudly in the breeze is worth everything, and one of life’s greatest experiences.

I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Like A Duet

I attended  a wedding a few years ago  and on the back of the wedding program was listed some of the marriage advice the bride’s third grade students had given her. Their comments were remarkably astute. For instance: Always hear each other, never fight about silly things, tell the truth always.

LOVE each other. If you get in fights, remember the good times.

When you fight, don’t yell or call names. On your anniversary, go out to dinner. Spend time together on the weekend and kiss each other before you go to work. Eat dinner together at the table. Kiss each other goodnight. And if one person is sick, the other should take care of them.

Wow. I was pretty impressed with these words of wisdom from eight year olds. But this is my favorite piece of advice, and it probably appealed to the bride, who is a musician:

Marriage is like a duet. When one sings the other claps.

One of the best things about having a good duet partner is that they support you all the way through the song, and applaud your efforts when you’re done. They aren’t out to prove they’re a better musician than you, they rejoice in your success and bolster your performance when things get tricky.

I was lucky enough to marry my own duet partner - literally and figuratively. As teenagers, my husband and I were studying piano with the same teacher. After confiding our mutual attraction for one another, and then confessing our shyness about pursuing it, she conveniently paired us as duet partners for the spring recital. Three years later, we were married, and, as our Best Man said to us in his wedding toast, we have been making beautiful music ever since.

That was thirty eight years ago today. So I’m thinking about the  last piece of advice those third graders had for their teacher, advice that was really more of a charge:

You should be married FOREVER.

I couldn’t agree more.

Happy anniversary to my duet partner forever.

Pieces of the Past: Destination

 I’ve been spending a lot of time sifting through eight years of blog posts and essays to include in my book, Life in General. Since many of my Facebook friends indulge in something called “Throwback Thursday”, posting photos of themselves from the past, I thought it might be fun to do something similar here, posting some of my favorite “ Pieces of the Past.”  Here’s one from 2006:  

Do you know where you’re going to?

Do you like the things that life is showing you?

Do you know?

Theme song from the movie Mahogany, originally recorded by Diana Ross, 1994

My husband I recently purchased new bikes to use at our home in Florida. It’s a perfect five mile ride around the perimeter of our gated community, with lots of inland waterways to admire as you’re pedaling along, and very little traffic to avoid. We try to get a ride in every morning, and Jim gets the bikes out of the garage while I lock up the house. Then it’s time for the big decision - which way to go? We can ride to the end of our street and turn right or left, making a perfect, neatly prescribed circle around the outside of the complex and returning right where we started from. There are no obstacles, no choices about turns, not even any bridges to cross. There are a couple of speed bumps, but it’s generally smooth sailing - a real no-brainer of a ride.

However, we could also ride through the interior of the community, which is a veritable maze of curving streets, glittering ponds, and arched bridges, requiring fancy gear shifting on the bridges, sharp braking on the downhills, and directional decisions all along the way in order to find your way back home.

Jim will usually say, “I don’t care which way we go. You pick.” If you know me very well, you can probably guess what my inclination is - the safe route, with no chance of getting lost, no challenges to face, just easy riding. Lately though, there’s been a nagging voice inside urging me to take the more adventurous way, the “road less traveled.” My husband, perceptive and gentle encourager, will sometimes save me from the decision and say, “Why don’t we start out toward the Town Center?,” knowing this will take us on the path into the unknown. I’m game to follow his lead, nimbly shifting into lower gears on the uphill bridges, flying down on the opposite side and whirling into a sharp turn at the bottom. We’ve gotten lost a time or two, requiring us to stop, take stock, and then venture bravely toward the way we thing we should be going. So far, we’ve always landed safe and sound at our original destination.

Generally I like “knowing where I’m going to.” I’ve traveled though life on well traveled routes that have taken me toward safe destinations with a minimum of challenge or risk. But I have to admit that sometimes I don’t like the “things that life is showing me.” My choice of destinations, while safe and secure, can be - dare I say - BORING. Maybe the destinations for the next part of life’s journey should be a little less predictable, a little more out of the way.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be quite so afraid to head down the opposite side of the road, where adventure might await.

After all, I have become quite fond of flying down those bridges, full speed ahead.

Rings of Remembrance

Jewelry is one of my passions, and I especially love wearing jewelry that belonged to someone in my family because it connects me to them in such a tangible way. For a long time I wore two slender gold wedding bands on the middle finger of my right hand - they belonged to my mother in law and my aunt, and each morning when I slipped them on my finger I gave these two women a tender thought. In June of 2011, I took the rings off and put them into a heart shaped box I keep in my nightstand - it seemed like time to move on, to let them rest quietly in my memory without that daily nudge against my heartstrings. This month I’ve been wearing my grandmother’s pearl ring on my right hand, because April is both the month of her birth and the month of her wedding anniversary. My grandfather bought the ring for her birthday, and although I can’t remember which birthday, I wonder if it might have been her 60th. I was old enough to recall going along on the shopping trip he took with my mother to pick it out. If she were turning 60, then I would have been 11 years old, and that seems to fit with the physical memory I have of myself in the jewelry store with my mom and my Granddad.

Wearing my grandmother’s ring this month has given me a chance to reflect on how important she was to me - how important both my grandparents were in my life.  They lived with us for most of my childhood, and became my de facto baby sitters and playmates. My grandmother spent most of her time in the kitchen, but she would always stop what she was doing, wipe her floury hands on the cotton apron she wore over her housedress, and take the book I had proffered to our favorite chair where we would cuddle and read for as long as I liked. My grandfather took me on daily walks through the woods where we imagined elaborate games of hunting wildlife, me carrying my little plastic Winchester cap rifle, our cocker spaniel trotting happily ahead with nose to the ground.

She taught me to sing - the hymns she once played on the piano at the Baptist church in their hometown. He taught me to play poker and hold that toy rifle steady. Fifty years later, those memories bring back a feeling of contentment, of being loved and valued.

I was luckier than most children in those days, and certainly luckier than most children nowadays, who more often than not have grandparents in different states or even different countries. My own grandson is one of those, and when I feel badly that we live 1500 miles away from him, I remember that his maternal grandparents live about 15,000 miles away in Thailand, and have never even seen him.

The other day I was out shopping with my friend when a Face Time call came in from her daughter and granddaughter in another time zone. The baby, an eight month old, looked seriously perplexed, staring at our faces in the little box on the phone screen. “All of these kids are going to grow up thinking their grandparents live in a tiny electronic box,” I joked. And while technology is a wonderful aid to see and hear in real time what the little ones are doing and how they are growing, sometimes those Skype and FaceTime calls reminds me of TV shows where people are visiting their family members in prison, talking to one another over a telephone, pressing fingertips and lips to the plexiglass screen that separates them.

It’s easy for me to have a personal pity party over the fact that I rarely see my grandson, that I can’t babysit for him while his mom and dad go out, that we won’t have many holiday traditions or regular sleepovers. But when I think about how much my grandparents taught me, how much I loved listening to their stories about life when they were children, what a close relationship we had based on the things we did together every day, then I realize that Connor and all the other little ones like him are missing something too.

Parents try so hard to give their children every advantage - the best schools, creative toys and playthings, access to every sport and enriching activity imaginable. In the modern world it’s easy to lose sight of other things that also important. Extended family can provide a quality of unconditional love and attention, a legacy of family history, a wise and calm perspective that is- well, in the words of the famous commercial - Priceless.

Each morning this month when I put my grandmother’s ring on my finger, I connect with all those wonderful memories I have of her and with what I know about her and my heritage. From her came my desire to play the piano, my understanding of the importance of books and reading. I don’t think I inherited her ability to bake (although admittedly I’ve not given it a fair shot) but I’m afraid my generalized anxiety and impatience are all hers!

I like knowing where all that stuff in me comes from. But I love having memories of the of hours, days, years, I spent in the company of my grandparents. Their love made me feel cherished in a way I’ve never felt since - as if I could do anything, as if I could do no wrong. It was a wonderful feeling.

Sometimes, when I put the pearl ring on my finger, I can still feel it. 

 How about you? Do you wear any jewelry that connects you with someone special in your family history?

Pieces of the Past - Lovliest of Trees

Sifting through eight years of essays and blog posts to include in my book Life in General, has brought some persistent “themes” to light. One of them is Time - the quick passage of it, the constant dilemma of never having enough of it, the consistent question of how to make the best use of it. Many of my Facebook friends indulge in something called “Throwback Thursday”, posting photos of themselves from the past. I thought it might be fun to do something similar here, posting some of my favorite “ Pieces of the Past." Like this one from 2006. “Lovliest of Trees":

Too fast. That’s what I think about time.

It travels much too fast.

Remember how the days once crept by, every minute larger than life and filled with opportunities - for play, for laughter, for being with friends, for having fun. Did you ever give a thought to time running out, to not having enough of it?

When was the moment you first noticed the swift passage of time? For me it was my 16th birthday (and I need a calculator to determine exactly how long ago that was!) There’s a Polaroid picture of me in an old photo album somewhere, leaning in to blow out the candles on my cake, dressed in the plaid skirt of my school uniform, my long hair in two braids draped over my shoulders. Truthfully, I look more like 6 than 16 in that picture. Yet I recall looking in the mirror that day and thinking: “Someday you’ll be old.” Old like my mother, who was all of 45 at the time. Old like grandmother, who was 63.

Looking back on all the years since then, who could have believed they would travel so swiftly, a blur of college and marriage and motherhood. Like fast motion photography, it sped past me - my LIFE - leaving me standing here in the chill wind of ghostly memories. I brace myself each day, digging my heels into the earth to keep myself grounded firmly in this moment, whatever it might be.

I know I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m healthy, and strong. I’ve never faced mortal illness or danger. My family is rife with long-lived women, and thanks to advanced in modern medicine, I could conceivably count more years than any of them.

Yet those years fly by so fast, and there is still so much left to do.

There’s a poem by A.E. Housman, set to music by Ralph Vaughn Williams. It’s called Lovliest of Trees. It’s a lyric, poignant song which many of the high school girls I accompany choose to sing as a festival piece. It goes like this:

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride,

Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy spring a score

It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

If you do the math, the narrator of this poem is 20 years old, lamenting the thought of “only fifty more” springs. It makes me smile to hear teenage girls sing this song, trying to grasp the idea of a finite amount of time in which to save the cherry blossoms.

Well, I’ve had fifty springs, and more besides. They seem to roll around more quickly every year, those cherry blossom months. Soon, another long Michigan winter will have passed, the robins will return, and the sun will warm my skin. I’m grateful for that, although it reminds me of the swift network of time I’m traveling through.

So excuse me while I go wander the woodlands. There are cherry blossoms to savor.