Seriously. Whatcha got? Health? Family? Career? Friends? Purpose? Beauty outside your window? Music whenever you want it? Food whenever you need it? You know what’s there.
Let’s all use our inside thank you voices and remember. There’s wonder amid the terror and love and laughter, and life.
Best wishes, in the most literal of terms, to you all.
Sunday night both boys, their wives and kids came for dinner. We won’t all be together for Thanksgiving; one son and his two kids will be with his wife and her family; we’ll be with our other daughter-in-law’s family. So Sunday was special, and it was a lovely evening.
Afterward, for some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about the Thanksgivings when we were kids. It was always at our house: my parents, my mom’s sisters and their husbands, my grandmother and “the cousins.” There were 9 of us, six girls (I was the oldest) and three boys. My Aunt Bettie, her husband, two sons and a daughter lived in Cleveland; the rest of us were all local, so when the Cleveland Cousins showed up, it was a big deal.
There was a kids table of course. Nobody, not even bossy me, was in a hurry to move to the old folks’ territory. We were having too much fun. In addition to everything else (including games of “Murder” and “Sardines” and lots of running around outside) we planned and performed little dramas every year. I doubt they were very good, but everyone clapped and we had fun.
I wonder about so much now, though: the covert sisterly conversations in my parents’ bedroom, my grandmother (that’s her in the picture), whom I thought had gotten mean but was apparently losing her sight and trying to hide it, the lovely uncle and the wild one, and the impact of the Depression on the sisters and their men. There’s so much of that time that I’d love to see with my grown up eyes: about raising kids and being a grandparent of course, but even more, about what WWII and the Depression had done to them. After all, as I watch events unfold, it’s scary to think how close we are to leaving our kids and theirs to face similar harshness.
I wrote this about them back in 2007, when the last sister died:
In some ways, they were the lucky ones; all three sisters and my father and uncles — were able, on scholarships, to go to college. All three marriages, despite tensions and tough times, survived with a real friendship between spouses for most of their lives. Each had three children who were smart, interesting, and self-sufficient. Even so, the bounty of choices they gave to us was so much more than they had had themselves. The young women in this photograph, and their husbands, never had the luxury of dropping out of school to campaign for Eugene McCarthy or majoring in music or theater or spending years doing trauma medicine a couple of months a year to pay for a life of mountain climbing and exploration. There was no give, no leeway, in the lives of those whom the Depression and the war that ended it – had stamped forever.
I’d give anything to hear it all now. All of it.
I hope we, and our kids, have the guts to be as courageous — and tenacious, as they were.
Happy Thanksgiving.
There’s a beautiful breakfast buffet at the hotel we stayed at for Thanksgiving weekend; Wednesday morning was a pretty thin crowd so there was a lot of easy chat from table to table and in the buffet line. Just in front of me at the omelet station was a very tall young woman — around 30 or 35.
“My husband and I together aren’t as tall as you are!” I teased. “Did you hate that in high school?”
“Oh, no” she replied, “I played basketball so I was fine about being tall.”
“WOW – Thank you Title IX” I laughed.
You can guess what came next: she’d never heard of 42-year-old Title IX and had no idea what it was or why it had been so necessary or what would have become of her basketball opportunities without it. Like my most-admired friend Veronica Arreola, we all need to help the girls coming up behind us understand how far we’ve come and how very far we still need to go.
My favorite memory, though, was time with the sisters: my mom and my aunts.
One lived nearby but the other came with her family from Cleveland so
when they were all together they wanted to talk. They'd sit in my
parents' room for ages; they let me hang around too. In a way, all of
us gathered on the bed those afternoons, and later in the kitchen after
dinner, washing dishes, is women passing along stories and traditions, preserving the wisdom of
the tribe.
I had no idea then of the value of those times. It
wasn't just being treated like "one of the girls," it was the sisterly
warmth, the laughter and sudden emotion, eye welling up, when one aunt
spoke of living so far from "home." Now, probably 50 years later, I
can see her leaning against the wall, her sisters looking toward her
with understanding sympathy. I can hear them talking about their
parents, my grandparents, one difficult, both disappointed with their
lives. For a little while, the burden of worry lifted a bit as they
shared it.
They were part of what is literally another world;
hats and gloves, scars from the Depression, government service during
World War II, an abiding sense of appropriateness. Like Betty Draper,
they left careers to stay "home with the kids." Their lives were so
different from ours, constrained and regulated — lives that many
daughters went to work to insure against.
What we forget is
that, even then, there was sisterhood. Maybe it wasn't as powerful and
certainly it wasn't as organized, but for me it still modeled a
solidarity, loyalty and love of the company of women that I still
cherish. And it's so exciting to see us all now, taking that example
along with the many farther afield, to enhance our larger community –
still a family of sisters – from one end of the Internet to – well – to
the whole wide world.
Cross-posted at BlogHer
This week I took dinner over to a couple who just became parents of an infant son. It had been a long time coming and it was very moving to sit in their living room and sense the peace and – to be honest – blessedness of their parenthood. I started out "doing something nice" by taking dinner and of course got far more out of it myself. Being in that room is a memory I will cherish.
I told them about all the parenting tips offered in virtual baby showers I'd been part of, and about all the other posts I'd done about my children and my life as a mother. Then I kind of promised I'd send them the links. I figured, though, that as long as I was pulling it all together I'd make a little package for anyone else looking for the kind of parenting advice that A) might be really good and B) you can ignore without hurting anyone's feelings. So here they are — and as The Band wrote, "take what you need and leave the rest."
First of all, since you have a son, here's a Julie's gift: a blog list filled with wisdom — a virtual baby shower of advice and warnings about raising boys. There's a list of "boy songs" too. That's a bonus. If you want to read my contribution, it's here.
And what about just plain good advice about being a mom? That was the first shower, and it's full of funny and often very moving posts. Here's mine.
This one's kind of funny, and will look like it's a million years away – but it's fun: what to do when a second kid shows up and makes everything crazy all over again. I wrote for that one, too.
My favorite is the one whose subject was "memories of the first thirty days." It was an emotional whopper; once I started I had trouble stopping. Here's what I remember.
Finally, as you enter this amazing new life, a preview of what it's like when your kids are grown and gone. They're from December of 2006 and this past Thanksgiving. For some reason both struck a nerve with readers; it's an amazing adventure you've embarked upon – and it's glorious in all its phases. I wish you half the joy I've known.
Here's the thing. My children live far away, one six hours to the west and the other, with his fiance, six hours to the east. We've been together for Thanksgiving week – all of us – hanging out, cooking, touring around DC, running errands and just being — and being thankful. It's always special when the whole family is together; it seemed so natural when the boys were little and now it's a treat. I cooked a million meals with them banging around in the kitchen. Now it's a precious thing when I make turkey meatloaf with my younger son. I watch him, an accomplished cook, chop like a pro, listen as he reassures me that this new thing will taste great, laugh with him, trade recipes. I rode around in cars, subways, buses with them all the time, and, along with their dad, dragged them into a million stores from grocery to toys to clothing to antiques. Now it's the pleasure of serious shopping at Ikea with my older son and his fiance, getting to be around while they choose a sofa. Seeing what a fine woman she is, watching them seamlessly making decisions together, measuring, taking photos, laughing, planning. It feels great to see them launching themselves so well together and makes it OK that much of their life is lived far from us. That's how it is.
I know though, that when kids are little, schlepping them in and out of car seats and strollers, keeping them occupied while you try to cook, keeping little hands out of the Ikea toy bins, mediating murderous sibling battles, keeping a home running while keeping kids in line – it's a lot. I remember. It doesn't matter whether you work outside your home or stay home with your family; either way there's so much to handle. I kept thinking about that as I wandered around Washington with these adults who are also, forever, my children, reminding myself how long it would be before we would all do it together again. Reminding myself that it's a credit to us that our kids are self-sufficient, productive and wonderfully decent, funny, loving men — and how blessed we are that they chose to come to us for the holiday — and that it's right, and good, that they have their own lives and homes and futures.
But though that's true, I wanted to tell you about this because it goes so fast. All the cliches are true. Turn around and they're grown. That doesn't mean it isn't hard to keep things going now, it just means that those days will be gone, sooner than you think.
My youngest is approaching 30. My oldest is getting married. They have money market accounts and careers and fiances and plans and even some gray hairs. They teach me more than I teach them (although that was always true.) They are, like those of you reading this, grown ups, and my husband and I have our own rich and happy life together. But it still can be, for those few moments of farewell at the end of each visit, desperately painful, on both sides.
As we drove to the airport last night, I (sort of) joked that I had to hook my iPod up to the car radio so that, when I was sad after leaving them off, I could blast Bruce, or Great Big Sea to make me feel a little better. When we arrived at the departure entrance, I got out of the car to help unload the bags. My son the chef was still in the front seat of the car. I was worried that a cop would throw me out of the parking place so I went toward the door to ask what he was doing. He turned around. "You iPod's all hooked up" he said, and reached out to give me a hug goodbye.
When our kids were little we used to take them, in the freezing Manhattan November, to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. For the twenty years we lived in New York, from Josh in a carrier on Rick’s back, to Josh on his shoulders and Dan in a Snugli, to the two boys worming their way past the grown-ups to stand in the front of the crowd at 75th and Broadway, to the years we went to our friends’ house overlooking Central Park West on Thanksgiving eve and watched them blow up the balloons — all the years of Columbus Avenue cocoa and popcorn, we were there. When they got older, the boys went together without us; the two of them joining the crowds (the TODAY SHOW just told me that this year there are 3.5 million people along the parade route) with the finesse of New York kids. I cherish those memories; I know they liked it but I don’t think as much as I loved watching them respond to the balloons and the music and the colors and the crowds.
If I weren’t in San Francisco without all our albums I’d scan a photo of the kids waving from the top of a newspaper vending machine, or on their dad’s shoulders, or looking up at the balloons with such magical wonder that I can’t describe it. But we’re here and no such photos inhabit my laptop, so I leave it to your imagination.
We left Manhattan for LA in 1992 and I haven’t been to a Thanksgiving parade since. I don’t even recognize all the balloons. Central Park West belongs to other parents and kids now; nobody who’s only seen it on TV can imagine the excitement, the smells, the noise, the freeeeezing cold and thrill of watching their kids wave to Big Bird and Bob IN PERSON!!!! I’ll always have a deep affection for Macy’s and the gift of that annual celebration of family, joy and, yes, thanks. Nobody can give a gift better than the gift of memories and they certainly have done that. Every single year.
We leave for San Francisco in the morning, I’m not packed, I have a class tonight and an appointment in 15 minutes. So this is a shortie. I’m so excited to see our kids and, as usual, nervous in advance. Last year I wrote a post called "I Don’t Want To Be a Turkey on Thanksgiving." Sort of the same feelings this year; being considerate of adult kids and their autonomy NOT from things you might do on purpose – those I can control. It’s the stuff that can happen by accident and end up being an issue that I always worry about.
If there’s anything I’m thankful for it’s the gift of these two young men who have grown into such fine people. Even from all the way across the country, they bless my days. Makes Thanksgiving mean a whole lot.
We’ve been up since 4:40 (7:30 at home.) Fortunately there’s a CLOSER marathon on TNT so we’ve had some entertainment. Now the dawn is emerging (that’s what’s in the photo — our view from the Hyatt) and pretty soon we’ll be wandering back over to our son’s home for Thanksgiving. It’s the first year he’s done it at his home and it’s pretty exciting.
The airport yesterday was full of families with kids of all ages on the way to visit people they love for the holidays. Whatever we may think about our country – and there’s plenty to be upset about – and however much we may worry – correctly — about the state of American families when 40% of new borns are born to single mothers — it’s still true that most American families of whatever makeup are loving and devoted –at least part of the time.
My sister is having our cousin for Thanksgiving at her house in Massachusetts and it will be the first time in probably 30 years that this much-loved cousin will be with any of the Samuels “girls” on Thanksgiving Day. We have all gone our separate ways and aren’t together enough but those feelings that anchor our lives are still very much part of us and, I think, of all the people we passed coming and going in the airport.
So to all of you – and all of us — happy Turkey — love your families and count your blessings. I know that’s what we’re going to do.
We’re going to Seattle for Thanksgiving to see our older son’s new apartment and be with both boys and assorted others. I always get a little nervous when I haven’t seen them in a while; you know how it is — you just love them so much and sometimes if it’s too obvious it becomes a burden. They are wonderful sons and wonderful people and they tolerate my enthusiasm for them pretty well. Like any family, we’ve been through a lot together – good and bad — and understand one another pretty well I think. But I do worry about what I do when I’m uneasy – I get way too verbal and my big effort is going to be to keep my mouth shut except when it makes sense to open it!
One thing I learned from my father (that’s him on the left) is to try like hell not to tangle your kids up any more than necessary. He used to tell us that we should live our own lives and NEVER feel obligated to him; that the gift of us was all we owed him.
His own father was a classic immigrant tyrant and so he, of course, went the other way. I’ll tell you, I honestly believe that his attitude made us MORE likely to call, show up and fuss over him. The only grief of it, aside from losing him, is that my mom kept telling us not to come home in his final illness, that he "would not want you to see him like this." I finally decided to go to him – fed up with being put off and horribly guilty about not doing it sooner – and he died as I was on my way there. I don’t think I’ve completely dealt with it in the 15 years since he died — too painful and nothing to do about it anyway — but I don’t want my kids to have that sort of experience either.
For that reason, I forced myself to call them when I was in the hospital instead of, like my own parents, waiting until I was out and OK to let them know. I really do think of them as grown men now and try to treat them with the respect I would treat other impressive men – but sometimes I slip and go "all mom" on them. They accept it with good humor but I just would love to have the discipline to give them the respect they deserve instead of indulging my own over-expressive self. I’m practicing all weekend. Can’t talk anymore… shhhhh!
