Month: June 2022

I have just begun reading The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. A confluence of events lead me to this beautiful and insightful text beginning with the long term illness of my father-in-law’s second wife. I was already in an emotional tizzy from watching her slowly drift away into a haze of pain as her body shut down. It was so difficult for me to watch, and the fact that her demise came shortly after the anniversary of my father’s death, close to the anniversary of my mother’s passing, and the murder of nineteen innocents in Uvalde did not help my state of mind. I commented to my daughters that I do not do death well. In fact, I don’t think I have any idea how to deal effectively with sorrow. But then, who does?

As fate would have it, a friend whose son was murdered almost a year ago wrote about his journey through grief and the complex emotions he has experienced during that time. He told us about his own magical thinking and quoted Ms. Didion’s book. At that moment I sensed that I needed to read her story as well. I needed to know if the jumble of feelings that have come and gone since my father’s death were okay or the sign of a disturbance that lives on incessantly inside of me. It was as though I had found a place to feel safe with my muddled thoughts. 

I became a dutiful people pleaser, a fixer of problems, on the day that my father died in spite of the reality that I was only eight years old. I approached death by doing things, attempting to take control of uncontrollable situations. My version of magical thinking was pretending that I was strong and capable. This was the face that I showed the world. Like Ms. Didion people thought of me as the “cool” presence in an emergency, but like her my rationality was little more than a reaction, a way of coping that denied the reality of what was happening. 

I remember a time when my brother and I took my mother for a consult to find out why she was coughing so much, spitting up blood, having difficulty breathing. My brother has told me that when the doctor gave us his diagnosis that my mother was dying from lung cancer I was angry and yelling. I do not even remember this. Try as I may I cannot believe that I did not hear what the doctor had said, or rather, I did not accept what the doctor told us. I was angry with my mother for overacting and giving in to tears of despair. I was certain that we would be able to fix her health and I did not want her to be pessimistic. All of it was a fog in my mind that I have never been able to unravel or explain. 

I learned from The Year of Magical Thinking that Joan Didion had similar experiences. Her husband’s sudden death and the events surrounding it were a blur in her mind. She had difficulty remembering the sequence of events and how she had reacted. She only remembered that the paramedics had commended her for being cool, but she did not recall being cool. In fact, she was “so determined to avoid any inappropriate responses (tears, anger, helplessness, laugher…” that she shut down all response.

When I read that line in Ms. Didion’s book I cried tears of relief because I suppose that I had trained myself to shut down in the face of tragedy or death. I did that unconsciously to protect myself from the truth, which would have been too much to accept in the moment. I had to give myself time to overcome my sorrow and my anger. In spite of my calm demeanor there has always been a core of rage in my heart that frightened me and made me feel abnormal. Through Ms. Didion’s words I saw myself over and over again. I realized that the little girl in me needed to know that I had reacted in a perfectly acceptable and typical way to my father’s death and every other death thereafter. 

My mother reached a point in life where she was not longer able to attend funerals, not so much because she was physically unable, but because she was no longer able to handle the sorrow. She grieved quite openly in private. She was able to shed tears with little or no effort. She had decided that she would no longer hide her feelings to make others feel comfortable. It was a freeing experience for her that I envied because I had long ago become a stoic, someone who often confounded people with my steadiness. 

I suppose that we are experiencing a kind of global grief right now. There is much anger in our hearts over the loss of millions of souls to Covid-19. We rage at the horrors of wars, not just in Ukraine but wherever such conflicts exist. We are weary of violence, crime, injustice. We worry about our future on a planet that is rapidly heating up and causing natural disasters that rent our sense of security in two. We are reacting in many different ways to the horrors that we witness, including adopting a kind of magical thinking that if we can just stay calm and hang in there it may all go away. Some run to movies, and trips and entertainment to pretend that all is well while others worry that we are doomed to a tragic future because of our unwillingness to face issues and take positive actions. Surely there is a way to quell our grief for humanity that lies somewhere in between, that allows each of us to be ourselves and love ourselves. 

I am not healed from my personal losses, and may never be, but it has been good to search my heart in a rational and honest way and to forgive myself for simply being human. Sometimes I react in the voice of an awkward eight year old who continues to dwell in my brain. I have to love her and calm her and then be my present self who has learned more about life and how the world works. I have to use my grief and the anger that follows from it more wisely and thoughtfully. What I really want is to make the world better and I believe that it can be done. 

I was fortunate to have to wear a uniform for all but one year of my pre-college education. Most of my peers hated the white blouses, pleated skirts and blazers that we had to wear, but for me they were a disguise that covered the fact that I owned a very limited wardrobe. I attended private school by the good graces of the nuns and priests who gave me free tuition because they understood my family’s economic situation after the death of my father. My mother was a financial wizard who managed to provide us with a seemingly comfortable lifestyle by using her talents for saving money at every turn. She often reminded us that the best class that she ever took in high school was Home Economics. It was there that she honed her skills at running a household efficiently with a very narrow margin of income. 

I never had to worry about looking out of place with my classmates. They had no idea how careful my mother had to be in setting priorities for spending. From the time that our family settled into our new life without a father I got by with a school wardrobe that consisted of two skirts, five blouses and a sweater or a blazer with one pair of shoes that hopefully lasted for an entire school year. Sometimes when I did not grow I used the same set of clothing over and over again. My clothing collection also included some play outfits into which I changed each afternoon to preserve my school clothes and two or three dresses that I used for special occasions and church. 

I grew up knowing nothing about fashion or designer labels. My mother shopped the sales all over town, hunting for the best quality items for the lowest price. If the cost was right and the articles fit they went home with us, otherwise she left them behind. In the big department stores I never saw the fully priced fashions sold on the higher floors. I was only familiar with the area often known as the bargain basement where I learned about discounts and percents. 

Somehow with my mother’s eye for a good deal I always managed to find something that was well made and had the look of quality. Mama often told me to find what complimented my shape and my coloring and to stick with classics rather than fads. She was as gifted when it came to fashion as she was in cooking. Somehow I always looked good and ate well under her tutelage. She worked hard to keep me and my brothers feeling safe and secure and often joked that she had a secret money tree in the backyard that she used only in emergencies. 

If I fretted over wearing the same clothing over and over again my mother would wisely tell me that most people were so worried about themselves that they rarely noticed how other people were dressed. She urged me to get over myself and think about others instead. She insisted that a nice smile was much more beautiful than a new dress. 

While I loved her philosophy I have to admit to sometimes doubting the veracity of it during my most angst ridden teen years. It would be decades before I came to fully realize how wise and wonderful she actually was. Somehow her lessons unconsciously guided me even when I did not realize how impactful they had been. As look back on how I did things I realize that I followed her lead without even thinking about what I was doing. 

To this day I head immediately to the sale racks in stores. I can’t think of many times when I have ever purchased an article of clothing that had not been drastically marked down. I know very little about designer labels or trends. I shop for items that will last for years and make me look thinner than I really am. I feel uncomfortable spending large amounts of money for anything other than shoes, which I consider to be the foundation on which I stand. I want my footwear to be comfortable and sturdy. 

There are certain labels that seem to always fit me well and last beyond a season, so I search for them on the sale racks. Calvin Klein seems to have tailored clothing just for the idiosyncrasies of my shape. Michael Kors has a way of slimming me. Still it is the cut of the clothing and quality of the fabric that makes all the difference, so I often find low priced items at Walmart or on Amazon Prime. I suppose my mother’s spirit continues to live inside my head. 

There was a time when my mother designed and tailored my clothing by hand. Her skill at a sewing machine was unrivaled. She was definitely a brilliantly gifted woman who had learned how to manage a household with aplomb. I used to internally roll my eyes whenever she quoted lessons she had learned in her Home Economics class. I did not appreciate the art and science of all that she had learned. Now I look back and wonder if we would have survived as a family well as we did without her amazing knowledge and skills and optimistic outlook. She had a designer label all her own.

We were all devastated after the death of my mother-in-law, Mary Isabell Fisk Gonzalez. Most especially sorrowful was my father-in-law, Julio. He was very lonely, but learned how to carry on with his life by working out at the gym and playing bridge a few times each week. He slowly replaced his grief with a determination to make the best of his new situation, but it was always obvious that he was very lonely even with family attempting to fill his void. Little did we know that in the twilight of his life he would meet a lovely woman named Janell who would help him to be happy once again. 

Sixteen years ago he introduced us to this beautiful and vibrant woman who would become a new member of our family. Janell was a most interesting person. She was born in El Dorado, Arkansas but spent much of her youth living in east Texas during a time when the discovery of oil in the area was booming and famous performers came to her neck of the woods to entertain the men and women working in that industry. Her beauty, outgoing personality and kindness made her an attractive young women indeed. She soon married a World War II veteran and over time gave birth to four beautiful children, Frances, Ann, Don, and Scott. She would be a proud mother for the remainder of her life, always regaling anyone who would listen with descriptions of how bright, successful and wonderful they had all become. 

Janell and her children lived for a time in Paris where she soaked in the history and art of that romantic city. She collected paintings and antiques and explored every corner of the City of Light. She enjoyed her time there and lit up with joy whenever she spoke of her adventures. She enjoyed the markets and the cooking and became quite the chef in her own right. 

Long after her children were grown and she had spent years as a single woman, Janell and my father-in-law met each other at a dance. She was such a strikingly beautiful vision with her youthful appearance and engaging smile that it is little wonder that he noticed her and fell for her quickly. Just after the infamous hurricane Rita threatened Houston, Texas the two of them announced that they were engaged and were quickly married after that. 

Janell fit in well with our family. She and my mother shared stories of being single moms and they developed a kinship that was sweet to observe. Best of all she managed to help my father-in-law smile and laugh again. They were like young newlyweds taking trips to Las Vegas, Puerto Rico and Europe. They loved going out to eat and being with family. 

Janell redecorated my father-in-law’s home with her colorful flair and brought in the lovely things that she had collected during her lifetime. She gave wonderful parties and pampered my father-in-law with all of his favorite foods while carefully adhering to his diabetic dietary restrictions. The two of them had fun together sitting on the deck in back of their house and visiting with the neighbors. Sometimes they even babysat with Janell’s great granddaughter who delighted them both with her innocent spirit. 

I often joked with friends that I got fashion tips from Janell. She really knew how to dress and look like a million dollars no matter where she was going. She and I talked about good books and great places to shop for bargains while my father-in-law and husband worked on the computer. I felt very comfortable with Janell from the very beginning and before I knew it, I realized that she and Mike’s dad had been married for sixteen years.

I understood that Janell had some heart trouble, but with extra care she had managed to forestall any big problems for quite some time. Then her health began to wane..She spent more and more time in the hospital but she remained hopeful that there might be some treatment that would help her improve. Sadly that was not the case. It was so difficult to witness this once vibrant and optimistic woman being sidelined by her illness. 

Janell was a very Christian woman. She was a long time member of Second Baptist Church and had even played featured roles in that congregation’s annual Christmas Pageant. The photos of her in costume are as stunning as she always was in person. She and I often spoke about her love of God and her belief that one day there would be a very special place for her in heaven. She had grown very weary of her life of pain and felt God’s call for her to go home.

On June 2, 2022, Janell quietly passed away at the Houston Hospice. She was a good and godly woman, a mother who adored her children, a grandmother who doted on her grandchildren and a wife who loved deeply. We will all miss her smile and her compassion. I feel certain that she is now at peace and that her soul is as beautiful as her outward appearance has always been. Rest in peace, sweet Janell, and thank you for taking care of our Papa over the years. 

I grew up with music all around me. I remember accompanying my mother and father on Saturdays when Daddy would purchase new 45 rpm records for his collection. Back then we would go inside a booth to preview the recordings before purchasing them. My father was partial to classical music, so that was what I mostly heard echoing through our house when I was small. 

Each afternoon when my dad returned from work he would take off his suit, replace it with a pair of khaki work pants, put one of his records on the turntable and lie down on the sofa to read. The music of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky and other brilliant composers would play so often that I was able to hum along with the melodies and anticipate the stanzas that I enjoyed the most. After my father died our mother used the music as background whenever we were studying or cleaning the house.

My brothers and I often created skits that seemed to capture the spirit of the symphonies that played on the little RCA Victrola that played each piece. We galloped to the William Tell Overture and rode on an imaginary flying carpet to Scheherazade. We danced our way through the dusting, mopping and folding of laundry without realizing how much more fun the music made our chores. To this very day I work best with music in the background.

As we grew older, so did our tastes in music. We began to purchase our own modern day favorites which often replaced our father’s cherished classical symphonies. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones found a new home on the stereo that our mother purchased to play our long playing vinyls. Our Saturday morning work sessions were more hip than those of our childhood. We no longer pretended to be characters in an operatic play, but only true aficionados of albums like Pet Sounds from the Beach Boys. 

To our great delight our mother appeared to enjoy and appreciate our music as much as we did. Over time she evolved even more by embracing the Bee Gees and Donna Summer. When my little girls spent the night with her she would turn the living room into a discotheques and dance with them for hours. They still delight in the memory of long evenings rocking with the music and sipping on Coke floats during restful intermissions.

In the eighties I adapted to the newer music of groups like Depeche Mode and I evolved into a groupie of all things Michael Jackson. Much as when I was a child I spent Saturday mornings blaring my music throughout the house as I cleaned and did laundry before running my weekly errands. Sometimes I switched to soundtracks from movies or even went back to my roots and played my favorite classical pieces. Somehow the music energized me and made work that might otherwise have been drudgery become almost enjoyable. 

These days most of my music comes from streaming. I listen to hours of traditional Christmas music as I take days to decorate my home. I have preferences for certain styles of music depending on what I am doing. In my mind there are appropriate sounds for painting, writing, studying, cleaning the house, gardening, traveling and going to sleep. I carefully choose great works to accompany me through whatever I may be doing. Music is as integral to my life as eating. It lifts my spirits and comforts and energizes me. 

There are some melodies that remind me of people that I have known or places that I have been. I think of my high school friend Claudia whenever I hear Norwegian Wood by the Beatles. I remember riding to a football game with my friends whenever The House of the Rising Sun plays on the radio. We were almost screaming with delight the first time we heard it. I can picture us all sitting in Eileen’s family Volkswagen bus naively unaware of the many adventures and challenges that lay before us. In that moment nothing really mattered but the joy of music that touched our souls. 

I can’t imagine a world without music and I so appreciate that it is always at my fingertips in ways that people of long ago never had. Music is the captivation of sounds that literally speak to our emotions and our dreams. From the moment our mothers sing to us when we are babies we are soothed by the harmonious combinations of sounds invented by our fellow humans. Just thinking about the process of stringing together notes to create a mood is rather astounding. It is a form of human brilliance that we all too often take for granted. 

I simply love good music and it does not matter what genre it is. The artistry of combining notes to create a theme, an original sound, is testimony to the brilliant ascent of the human mind. I suppose that I owe much gratitude to my father and my mother for introducing me to the wonder of music from the time of the first memories of life that I have. The joy of music combined with books is a great gift from them that I never take for granted. 

The pattern is all too familiar. We know how it works. A mass shooting occurs. Innocent people are killed or wounded by a mad man. We are shocked for a brief time. We offer our thoughts and our prayers. We suggest solutions. The arguments and accusations begin. We get distracted. We change the subject. It’s too difficult to speak about such things without getting emotional, so we create fun diversions to occupy our thoughts. We tune out those who keep babbling about it. We move on. The list of incidents and victims grows, but we would rather think about that tomorrow, or perhaps never again until the next time. 

A celebrity steps up to share his reasonable thoughts. He implores us to think of the real people who have been killed. He makes his arguments very personal. He appeals to our better natures. We can see that he is sincere, that he means well. Some point out that he is only an actor, not a person well versed in the constitution or the anatomy of guns or gun owners. They ask what his real intentions might be. They question his motives and ask why we should even listen to him, even though these same people are devoted followers of another man whose only real claim to fame is that he was and still is a celebrity who became president. We turn away and pretend we did not hear what the honest actor has said. We would rather think about that tomorrow, or perhaps never again until the next time. 

We hear about a deadly gun that makes wounds so horrible that they destroy soft tissue, organs, bones upon entry into a body. They are so destructive that they are capable of decapitating victims with their impact, making them unrecognizable. Some insist that such a gun should banned from society save for use in the military or for policing. Others protest that they are necessary for hunting deer, or raccoons, or gophers or feral hogs. The most honest admit that they want them for protection and that the second amendment gives them the right to own them. We hear the different sides with an unbending determination to win the debate with our own views. We are thinking of our personal rebuttals even as the sounds of differing views are echoing in our heads. We would rather think about that tomorrow, or perhaps never again until the next time. 

We are a nation rent in two, so divided that our only goal seems to be to prevent the other side from accomplishing anything that might actually help all of our citizenry. We seem to just want to be left alone, to be able to enjoy our way of life and what we see as our freedoms without too much sacrifice or responsibility. It is too painful to dwell on the horror of the realities in the world. It makes us feel bad, and we don’t want to feel bad. We would rather think about that tomorrow, or perhaps never again until the next time. 

We are like a couple whose relationship has been fractured. We are no longer able to talk, to hear and understand each other’s feelings and ideas. When we try to discuss our problems we always end up in a fight. We find it impossible to comprehend how the other can actually have beliefs that are so contrary to our own. Are we not friends? Have we not loved each other? When did we grow so far apart in the way we see the problems that are tearing us assunder? We stop talking because it is too painful to do so. We would rather think about that tomorrow, or perhaps never again until the next time. 

 We are the United States of America and yet of late we seem to be heading for a divorce. We the people appear content to watch our grand experiment of a democratic republic divide us rather than unite us. We are avoiding truths and problems and solutions. We have become a nation of bumper stickers, flags, soundbites, and allegiances, rather than one dedicated to the proposition that we can work together to solve the problems that only grow with our unwillingness to endure the pain of facing them head on. We no longer have the luxury of thinking about that tomorrow, or perhaps never again. This is the next time and this time should be the last time that we allow our elected representatives to only spar with each other rather than attempt to actually change the dangerous course of politics that has left us reeling in sorrow and anger again and again. 

I am angry and weary of sacrificing one million people to a virus because we can’t agree on how to protect one another. I am angry and weary of sacrificing innocents to mass shootings and violence because we can’t agree on how to protect one another. I am angry and tired and weary of sacrificing our very democracy because we can’t agree on how to protect our freedoms and our votes without justifying treasonous acts. I am angry and tired and weary of the sound and fury of our political views because the noise signifies nothing but the slow and continuous demise of our country. We must think about that today, lest there be no tomorrow.