Gratitude - Thanksgiving night (duh)...

Well of course on Thanksgiving we're supposed to feel thankful. But actually the implied obligation of "supposed to..." is far to negative. I feel so incredibly fortunate and grateful. One day isn't enough.

For the last several days I've been thinking about one thing I'm grateful for, and we got talking about it yesterday or this morning. One thing I'm really grateful for is the privilege of watching my mother come into her own in the last six years. When she moved to town five years ago, everyone she met said "Oh, I have such fond memories of C's orchids." She said "I realized I had lived in his shadow all my adult life, and I didn't know who I was. I had to figure that out."

Dad did cast a long shadow. He was creative and had a zillion interests. Mom was intensely interested in teaching and kids and learning, but once she retired, she didn't have a professional identity. Then she lost her husband, and then left the house that she and dad had built. It seemed that all moorings were cast off.

I think that is part of why those Friday morning breakfasts were so powerful: in many ways Mom and I were on parallel journeys. I sort of understood that at the time. I knew we were both dealing with loss and trying to figure out what was important to us. What I experienced from her was a lot of compassion and wisdom and perspective and acceptance - and blessing. But I also saw her grow in her confidence and - I think the word is equanimity; the calm centered knowing or her self.

Watching someone grow in that way in their late 80s is inspiring. So much for rigidity and decline in old age.  And if I have any capacity for equanimity and compassion and perspective and acceptance and blessing, she deserves a lot of the credit. And I got to work on it in my 50s, not my 80s.

I am a lucky man.

Gratitude - Hospitality...

Mom was always a gracious hostess.  Even now, if you show up at her apartment her first impulse is to offer a cup of coffee. She always has some cookies or candies to put out on a plate, and if she doesn't have those, then she'll dig up some crackers and cheese, or chips, or something. In the last week or so that has become too much, and she told me that she finds it hard to suppress the impulse.

Growing up we always had company stopping by. People just seemed to show up at the door, often without calling. Or my folks would host people for dinner. At the time I didn't understand how much work that made for Mom. I'm sure Dad don't help much. (Later in life he did help more, but it was mostly "helping", not being in charge.) But ours was a home where people just seemed to show up and flow through. I don't think it is just a different time now, Mom somehow created a space where people knew they were welcome.

Mom has continued that pattern right up to now. There are so many people calling as word of her illness has gotten out.

One of the remarkable things is how she has connected to so many women across different ages. Last spring a senior at the college got assigned to interview her for a class project, and she kept coming back to visit Mom long after she had completed her assignment. She got something from getting to know this wise old woman.

And that is the story of her life. When I was a kid, it was Beth and Gracie. In the last couple of years J has been painting with her, and seems so appreciative. In between ... I don't know how many.

And then there is the discussion group she created at Gcroft to bring women together who have really divergent viewpoints to listen to each other and hear how other people think. She's found that challenging, But it sounds like she's kept an open mind even while she has expressed her own ideas.

Reflecting on all this now, it seems like Mom was somehow able to pull off the roles of both Mary and Martha in the story of Luke. She did the preparations, but also joined in the conversation too. I wonder what she'd say to that idea!

Gratitude - Friday morning breakfast...

I think my favorite hour each week is Friday breakfast. Almost every Friday morning for the last six years, Mom has had fresh coffee, rolls and cereal ready for me at 6:30. It started when she sold the homestead and moved to town. I was riding my bike within a hundred yards of her back door every day to and from work, and it was pretty easy to turn that into a cup of coffee and a couple of rolls.

Our time together is unhurried and relaxed. Sometimes we're silent, but usually we're covering everything from family history and lore, to politics, to theology, to the latest gossip. Usually she has a couple of computer questions, or I help her check her investment account or order a book online.  Sometimes she asks me for advice. Sometimes she has advice for me. The conversation ebbs and flows. A lot of the stories that I'm sharing here come from that table.

What I've experienced is a kind of support and blessing and wisdom that I never imagined possible.

Tonight (Thursday) I asked her if she wanted me to come again in the morning. She said, "Of course, I have some rolls in the freezer yet. But you may have  to help me get it on the table."

That raises a curiosity. I've never asked her to teach me to make her rolls. It never seemed right. But will the recipe die with her? Should I spend a day getting her to talk me through a batch? Could that possibly be enough to absorb a lifetime of experience making those rolls? Will I ever make them again after she is gone? Or should I leave it, and then spend the rest of my life trying to recreate them, and never quite  get them right? (Which is, I think, what my Dad would have done.)

So I'll go tomorrow, wondering if this will be the last time she can host me.  I think that is what it means to face loss: wondering when the last time will be.

In the meantime, I tell myself "I am a lucky man."

Gratitude - Giving myself permission

A guest post from L.:

Giving Myself Permission

It has been a rocky week for my family. On Monday, my grandmother, one of the most important and inspiring women in my life, was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. At 92, I knew her time with us would eventually end, but she’s so bright and fiery still that it was easy to imagine her being with us for another decade.

For my personality, extroverting my feelings is healing and allowing external support is super important for my well-being, and yet I notice I often hold back when I need to share. Sharing or extroverting my feelings comes quite easily to me in a well-established close relationships, but I tend to hold back in developing relationships. I have a mostly unconscious perception that it won’t be safe, or I’ll completely break down if I let a little bit of emotion show. What I know to be true from my practice though, is that when I don’t give permission for one part of myself to be how it is and to flow, other parts of me will also be stifled or dampened.

I’m making it a practice to notice this, and consciously choose to open more, both to myself and to others. If I shut down and don’t give myself permission to share the brokenness and sadness I feel, I also am shutting down the possibility of deepening connection and relationship, which is one of the most joyful parts of life for me. What I’m finding when I give myself permission to let the waves of feelings move through me, and to share that with others, is that I am buoyed up in an ocean of support and one of the strongest currents in that ocean is gratitude.

After the diagnosis, my grams was the first to remind us all of how much we had to be grateful for. We’ve made so many beautiful memories together, and I’m so lucky that I grew up near her and have had the chance to relate to her so much as an adult. Leading quietly by example throughout my whole life, my grams has forged and held onto relationships and modelled how to stick with relationships even when they are challenging, conflicted, and stretch you into vulnerable places. I am so grateful to her for that example. And I feel so grateful for all the supportive hugs and compassionate ears in my moments of sadness and vulnerability this week. I’m glad I gave myself permission to share.

Gratitude - ironing...

When I was a kid I could earn real money for ironing shirts. I think it was 10 cents a shirt. Mom taught me the order: collar, yoke, sleeves, placket, body. I learned how to set the iron temperature. I ironed a lot of shirts when I was a kid, and I still know how. It seems that with the newer no-iron fabrics I don't have to do it very often, but almost every time I travel, I take a shirt out of my bag and touch it up in the hotel. And every time I do I think of the order Mom taught me: collar, yoke, sleeves, placket, body.

Which reminds me of another little lesson. Everytime I hang out my laundry, especially on a clothesline outside, I can hear her voice saying "Laundry well hung, ironing half done."

Gratitude - reconciliation and reconnecting....

Looking back on my experiences, I can identify at least three or four situations where Mom has persevered in reconnecting family. The first was my Dad's brother's family; the California cousins. It's a long story of flight from a painful, cloistered Amish-Mennonite past, and a break in relationship that lasted at least 15 years. One summer in the mid to late 60's, Mom was in California for some education conference and she called the offended sister-in-law. I have this mental image of her sitting on a bed in some little hotel in South California. She told me that at first  it was all she could to keep P.  from hanging up on her. But the call stretched into an hour-long conversation, then an invitation to visit, and ultimately led to a reunion with my Dad and his nieces and nephew and their families. Mom and Dad had several visits with them over the next 20 or 25 years. I finally met one of these cousins a few years ago, and when I remarried a few years ago, she sent a hand made doily that her mother (the offended sister-in-law) had made.

Mom didn't have the same role in making the initial reconnection to my Dad's half sister, Aunt K, aka  Sister T. The story of how dad and I found here has entered family legend.  But Mom has persevered in sustaining the relationship since Dad died. Actually, when Dad died, mom asked Aunt K to come stay with her, and she did for several weeks. What a rich addition to our family that has been.

I also credit my Mother with keeping the connection between our family and my oldest brother's kids after my brother died. With J it was probably easier, since during his critical public school years he lived in the same town. But from what  I  could see, Mom led the charge in putting him first in the relationship with his mother's family.  And that has translated into a transformation of the relationship  with his mother's whole clan. One of his aunts recently wrote with a very sweet offer to help Mom out in any way possible as her health declines. Thinking back 40+ years, it is hard to believe that would have happened but for Mom's tenacious belief in the importance of that relationship.

With M it was harder, because of she was 4 hours away, and because her mom and dad were never married, and my brother caused  a lot of pain for her mom.. I don't know how she did it, but I know that Mom again reached out to M's mother very early in M's life. Somehow she was able to do it in a non-demanding and non-threatening way, and sewed seeds that are still blossoming and growing.

I'm grateful for these stories of perseverance and reconciliation. Mom modeled grace and respect for others, and an acute sense of responsibility for the well being of family.