Thursday, June 25, 2009

Strong Christian Women who Influenced my Life

I feel very blessed to have had examples of strong Christian womanhood in my life. My mother was high strung, very strict, and we fought a lot until I got married—when “she could finally enjoy me and not worry about me anymore”. She calmed a great deal then in spite of the fact that she was going through diagnosis which would end up being her third and final bout with cancer (I refuse to honor this disease with a capital letter). She actually developed a sense of calm, I think, as she gave this worry over to God. You know, you realize that God is all you need when God is the only hope you have. She passed 3 years after I married with calm, grace, and serenity brought about by that deep faith.

Both of my grandmothers affected who I am, but due to the more demonstrative, sharing nature of my Mam Maw, I probably knew her much better as a person. She had had a difficult life. You read earlier of her losing the love of her life at a fairly young age and raising 4 children on her own during the depression. She lost one son when he was 21 to a brain tumor and my mother at 48 to cancer also. She had her eldest and youngest sons left and lived many more years. She seemed content with life and never complained about the hard times and losses of her past. She had a lot of joy in her great-grandchildren—my daughters. By the time she was in her early 80’s, still caring for a big garden and canning on a regular basis, she seemed to be more tired. That did not seem unusual, but what she was hiding was that she had cancer, was treating the pain with aspirin, and going about her business as much as possible. She kept it from us because she was tired and ready to go, and she knew we would encourage treatment. She was taken to the hospital when it became impossible to hide anymore. The hospital determined the diagnosis, she refused treatment, and we took her home with the help of Hospice Care. She died 10 days after the trip to the hospital. To me, she was always a stately lady with dignity and a soft, loving heart of gold.

The other woman who was a profound example of Christian womanhood was my Aunt Margaret, my dad’s never married sister. While I have indicated my dad’s side of the family was not demonstrative, this aunt did demonstrate her love for the Lord and people through service. Had the Southern Baptist Church had nuns, she would have been Mother Superior. We still learn of things she did to care for those who were mentally ill, alcoholics, homeless, elderly, blind, and many others. My aunt kept me every Saturday night and took me to Sunday School and church every Sunday since my dad built race cars and raced late every Saturday night. This obviously was a huge influence on the development of my faith. She walked me through the profession of faith process and was always there for my questions. She obviously cared deeply about me. It is funny to me now to remember that when I was younger, I actually didn’t think she even liked me due to those family traits of not showing affection and being so matter of fact. I had the privilege of visiting and helping to care for her daily during the last several months of her illness. She was so impatient about going to be with the Lord and not liking being dependent on others for her care—impatience and independence also being family traits. I tried to assure her that because of her service, it was taking the Lord longer to prepare a place appropriate for her and that those she had served needed the time and opportunity to serve her back—even though she didn’t like it. Her Southern Baptist funeral was by far the longest I have every attended. To her, I’m sure it was a last shot at saving a few more souls.

My Maternal Grandparents--A Love Story

Even though I never met my grandfathers, my Mam Maw and that side of the family were more demonstrative both in word and action about feelings, so I became aware that my Mam Maw and her husband were very much in love. She used to claim that her nose had been more pug before her husband spent years tweaking it lovingly every time he walked by. As a farmer, he was prone to head out to sales, etc on a moment’s notice as he heard about them. She and the 4 children would be ready to go anytime as she kept a suitcase packed with necessities for everyone. Keeping a suitcase packed and ready was her advice to my aunt when she married one of her sons.

As she got older, she would speak more frankly about things. At one time she commented about wishing it had been okay for a woman to enjoy sex when she was younger. Women were apparently taught that they were to do their “wifely duty” with no noticeable response in order to remain respectable. She obviously would have liked to have been able to show her husband how much she loved him in every facet of their lives.

When her youngest child was a toddler, my grandfather became quite ill. She and his brother (my Uncle Shelly) drove him to Mayo Clinic in Minnesota since the local doctor could not diagnose or treat the problem. It was advanced cancer, and he died with his head lying on her lap on the way home. As you can imagine, her life was quite hard after that—raising 4 children on her own during the depression. I regret now that I have so many holes in the story. We don’t realize what we would like to know about relatives until we are older and they are gone. I do know that she was married again briefly. I only know because I asked about her name on a book with a different surname. She explained that she had accepted a proposal from a man to try to better provide for her family, but he and his son’s were cruel. (His son had caused her son to fall from the barn roof, and her son died of a brain tumor a few years later???) She also indicated that she had a lot of shame over having gotten a divorce and would prefer to never speak of it again. We didn’t.

How Did I Start Out at This Train Station?

I have always been fascinated by how generations of people I never knew have had a fairly profound effect on who I am. The personalities and choices of people from decades ago with several greats in front of the word grandparents started the mold for what became me—both genetically and experientially. As their characteristics and results of their decisions were passed to their children, a trickledown effect had a hand in how my own parents parented, lived, and what their values were. I hope sharing some of this information will be interesting to my children and grandchildren.

I can only address back to great grandparents as some stories were relayed to me. My maternal great-grandparents were apparently quite a mismatch (as both my husband’s and my parents also were in many ways). She (Mother Gee)was a very hard worker and, I understand, very religious. He (Daddy Gee) was also a hard worker, but stories that have carried on through the years are more about his jovial nature and heavy drinking. He was Irish, after all (McGee). It turns out that he had a horse that would carry him home and stop for him to get back on any time he fell off. This horse later became the property of my dad’s uncle (Daddy Gee and Uncle Bernie were buddies), and my dad had commented on what a good horse this was for them as kids to learn to ride because of his training with my Daddy Gee. This seemed sort of a funny story to me, but my Mam Maw (Daddy Gee’s daughter) did not think it was very funny. She added that he would often take her mother’s butter and egg money to buy drinks for others. Negative family stories were not freely shared, but I became aware that Mother Gee had apparently been admitted to a mental facility toward the end of her life. I think my Mam Maw sort of blamed her dad, but others talked about her symptoms being more like extreme menopause. Back then, any behavioral concerns from older adults was called hardening of the arteries. I never met her, but do have a memory at about 4 or 5 years old of Daddy Gee unshaven, old, and in a big iron bed and then later attending his funeral.

To be continued………

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Perfectionist--yes, perfect--NOT!

About the mostly reformed perfectionist in me: I’d say compulsive-obsessive probably would have been the diagnosis if I was a child now. Keep in mind that I was an only child in a family that didn’t do a lot of talking about life, in spite of what late 50’s, early 60’s family sitcoms portrayed. Being an only child kept me from having anyone to compare myself with on a daily life basis, so it didn’t occur to me that I was approaching life any differently than any other kid was. What I recall, at about third grade, was starting a cycle of cleaning my desk, locker, and room with the plan of keeping things perfect and being perfect from then on. As soon as one part of the plan would go awry, I would have to repeat the process. I don’t recall ever feeling this was a problem or burden, but apparently I eventually became aware that I could not keep up as responsibilities increased.

My mother would laugh to hear me say I was a perfectionist. All she would remember was how messy my room was from junior high on. PERFECTIONISM doesn’t mean you are perfect, it means you have the intense and constant desire to be so. Since I could not settle for less than perfect and complete results in any project, if I couldn’t do it perfectly, I chose not to do it at all. If I had a free Saturday with time to gut all the drawers and closets, I would clean my room thoroughly. If I did not have the time, I would ignore it until I did.

Unfortunately, my daughters both have these tendencies. My younger one has learned her limitations and focuses her energies on her job. My husband does not understand her messy apartment…… but I do. My older daughter turned out to be a gifted artist after a 5 year hiatus from drawing as a result of an older child telling her she colored “yucky” when she was 4 or 5. Sorry girls.

A friend (who is a much better perfectionist than I) has expressed surprise that I have been able to let this go (for the most part). There were two major factors that reshaped my perception of what was really worth spending effort on. Within two weeks, my mother passed away (she was 48 and I was 24) and I discovered I was pregnant with my first child. I decided something that was so painful would be used to grow my wisdom and faith and that carefully choosing battles as a parent would be a priority. My house is straight most of the time, but no white glove tests please. Some things I read helped me realize that focusing on today and this moment is important because it is all you have current control over and since the word worry actually comes from a root that means “split mind”, that is also a waste of energy. I figured out that the over planning and list making was futile as I would write out my school plan book in perfect script for weeks in advance only to have to redo it when a child didn’t learn at the planned pace. Now I’ve become pretty laid back for the most part although I still occasionally have to fight it.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Not just Sidetracked, but Derailed

I probably need to clarify the blog explanation next to the title--about not going where I think God is leading. More accurately, I would say God is not always leading me where I think he is. I have found He often uses detours to give some skills I need for where I am actually being led. It’s like the expression: “If you want to hear God laugh, make a plan.”

I am pretty detailed about planning trips so we can get the most out of our time. With many years of going to Disney World and always reading the tour books for new tips, I had quite a system down. Even at that, I knew structure had to be balanced with flexibility. You can’t let a glitch in the road spoil the fun. Consider the re-routing an adventure and go with it. It would be a shame to be like the family who had their Italy trip changed to Holland, and their disappointment kept them from enjoying the beauty that was Holland. Yes, my family and friends consider me a Pollyanna who always sees an opportunity for positive in every situation. We’ll explore that later.

Some of the best things that have happened were not planned and some may have thought at the time that I was not just sidetracked, but off-track. An example would be walking into my dorm suite to be intrigued by a friend of my new roommate’s boyfriend. I had been in a relationship for 6 years with an unofficial engagement and wedding date for the following December. It turns out I married this new intriguing guy 35 years ago. I’d say this turned out to be a successful derailment from my original plan.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Sidetracked or Multitasking

The first title I thought of was "Sidetracked by Life", but it was being used. I thought it was interesting when I went to look at that site to find only one posting done in November. I can only think that........
the author got sidetracked.

This blog title may give you the impression that I am flighty--and sometimes I am, but it is much more complicated than that. I am actually a mostly reformed perfectionist, but more about that later.

Even while I was setting up this blog with the fun backgounds etc., I found myself "multi-tasking", which is a nice word for "sidetracked". I had several projects going at a time and walked past the sofa to see the storage bag for the comforter that I had gotten halfway across the house and remembered I hadn't finished making the bed....or folding the laundry.....or unloading the dishwasher.......or.... I think you get the point. This is probably why it is a good thing that I am a list maker about most things I need to get done. For some reason though, I felt somewhat euphoric with this random approach to getting things done today.