Month: October 2023

I’ve lived awhile, so if I told my entire story it would take quite a chunk of time and most likely become rather boring or at least tiresome. I’ve brought my readers to a particular moment in my life, but now I sense that it’s time to speed things up, get to the present, think about something more interesting. I’ll do my best to wrap things up in the coming days, but there are still important moments that simply can’t be ignored.

I have dedicated the bulk of my existence to looking after members of my family, surviving the slings and arrows that have come my way and attempting to find meaning in the things that I have done. I have slowly but surely marched to my own drumbeat even as I adjusted my dreams to accommodate the people who have been so much a part of my personal story. I find most of my happiness in people, not the least of which have been my husband, daughters and grandchildren. 

I officially became “Gammy” when my first grandson Andrew began to learn how to talk. He crowned me that very special name. Not long after he was born my daughter, Catherine, married her beau, Jeremy, and they moved to the Chicago area. Once again I had to travel to the midwest to see one of my children. Unfortunately Catherine’s health declined after a series of infections. She spent her first year of married life with doctors who advised her to leave her job as a science teacher in a private school to focus on getting healthy. Unable to work and far away from family and friends she understandably also nursed a case of the blues. Because she was an incredible artist her sister came up with the idea of gifting her with tuition for art classes at a local community college. Together we both understood that she a gentle push to get back into the living of life.

Catherine was quite excited to have something to distract her from her illnesses, but when she leafed through the course offerings she was drawn to the nursing program for which the nearby college was quite respected. She asked if we would be okay with her registering for a class in nursing instead of fine arts. Of course we were happy that she had found classes that piqued her interest whatever they might be. Thus began her goal of becoming a registered nurse. 

While Catherine threw herself into her studies, Maryellen became pregnant again. Soon after my second grandson, Jack, was born. Named after my father and my husband, Jack Michael Greene, was a beautiful and serene baby from the start. He was one of those children who seemed to be eternally happy and undemanding, easily fitting right into the family. He made us smile with his sweet personality. He was also incredibly smart with an impish sense of humor. 

Catherine really discovered her passion in her nursing classes, especially when she began working with patients in the different areas of healthcare. She was particularly drawn to cancer patients, those with mental illnesses and the elderly. She possessed a level of compassion and patience that impressed her professors as well as the people that she nursed. Because she already had a degree that was focused on science, it took her almost no time to become a registered nurse. I was particularly proud of her accomplishment and happy that her health appeared to improve enough for her to do the demanding that comes with ministering to the sick. With her exceptional grades and glowing recommendations from her professors she quickly secured a job at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in downtown Chicago.

She was working on a Med/Surge floor with some of the sickest patients in the city. Her twelve hour shifts rotated between the day and the night. I loved hearing her speak about her job with such enthusiasm. Every patient meant so much to her and losing one of them always deeply touched her heart. She quickly rose in status on her floor when her supervisors witnessed her dedication and grasp of the knowledge that she quickly acquired. She was incredibly happy save for the fact that she wanted to start a family with Jeremy but had experienced difficulty with pregnancies due to her earlier health problems. It was slowly beginning to appear that she might never have children of her own. Miscarriages had become a nightmarish reality in her life. It broke my heart that there was so little that I was able to do to help her.

Changes abounded with me and my family. I soon followed one of my principals to the largest school district in Texas, Houston ISD. The move was a massive culture shock given that I had always worked in either private schools or a much smaller district where everyone knew everybody. Suddenly I was part of a big machine where I had to toughen up or get chewed up. It was the biggest professional test I had yet endured and the rush of challenges would become relentless.

Happily Maryellen and Scott moved back to Houston just when I seemed to need them most to keep my sanity. It was fun to have my grandsons, Andrew and Jack, so near and I took full advantage of being able to have them come our home for sleepovers and fun days. They were just the happy balance that I needed to curb my worries about Catherine and be a welcome break from my exhaustion at work.

I would need such moments of joy because life was about to rain on our family with the vengeance of a hurricane. I had been so busy adjusting to my new job that I had hardly noticed that my mother was slipping into one the most horrific phases of her mental illness that I had ever before witnessed. Dark clouds were gathering and somehow I had not seen them. It would take the combined efforts of me and my brothers to bring her back to health. I had to dust off my spinning plates, balls, and rings so that I might become a masterful juggler of my many responsibilities once again.  

Not long ago I read a lovely and important column by climate advice columnist Michael J. Coren entitled Why You Should Tell Your Children About Vanishing Fireflies. Mr. Coren pointed out that youngsters only know the world as it is today. They often do not realize how different it may have been even twenty years ago. Their baseline for judging the health of the planet is in the here and now. Accordingly they all too often have no idea what they may be missing. They are unaware of the losses of creatures and seasonal weather patterns that have changed over time. He suggests that we must open the eyes of the younger generations to what has been but no longer is. The idea is to begin to plan for an even better ecosystem than now exists by making critical changes in our human habits. 

The summer was particularly unbearable where I live. We had incredibly long stretches of one hundred degree and higher days beginning in late June. There was so little rain that lawns began to die and plants wilted within an hour of being watered. The ground was parched and the air was oppressive in ways that it had never been when I was young. Records were set day after day and even our electric power was threatened by the massive use of air conditioning to keep us all cool. Our summers are hotter and longer than I ever remember them being. 

Even people with swimming pools said that the water was sometimes too hot to enter. The chemical balance went out of whack leaving unsafe conditions. The decking burned feet that were not protected by shoes. Nature was speaking to us and some of us still were unwilling to listen.

It’s always been hot in the summer where I live, but not this hot. We were able to survive in homes and cars that were not air conditioned through many summers. We played outside and hydrated ourselves with garden hoses. Back then there were butterflies everywhere and in the evenings when the sun went down the night was lit up by hundreds of fireflies. There were bees humming all over my mother’s flowers and birds serenading us with their songs. 

Now I can honestly say that most people would die from today’s heat if they did not have some method for cooling themselves. I haven’t seen fireflies in a very long time and while we have an occasional butterfly or bee they are more of a surprise than something that we once took for granted. There is concrete overtaking so many of the forests of trees that used to be everywhere. We appear to be taking down nature without thought, making way for our human creations that are spelling the doom of flora and fauna that once filled our world with delight. 

I suspect that I would enjoy being like my Grandma Minnie Bell who served as my teacher about nature. She knew the names of every bird in the sky and even spoke to them with calls that mimicked their chirps. She respected them and made efforts to remember their needs whenever she designed a garden or cleared land for some purpose. She lived her life in Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma when they were wild and green. She had witnessed the damage done by over eager farmers who plowed up the land without thoughts of what the destruction of native grasses might do to the soil and the creatures who lived on it. She understood the importance of conserving resources and paying attention to messages that nature was sending to humans. She told us all about our duties to cherish our earth because we all depend on it for our very lives. 

The more I witness, the more I understand my impact on the environment. I want to be a steward like Grandma was. She worked hard and purposefully to make her footprint on the land as small and forgiving as possible. She lived to be eighty years old without an air conditioner even though she always resided in places with hot summer temperatures. She used every scrap of paper, cloth, food that she had, so as not to waste. She recycled clothing into quilts, table scraps into compost, flour sacks into dresses. She used glass jars and containers that she could clean and reuse instead of plastic. She created natural  potions to scare away pesky bugs rather than spreading toxic chemicals. She was frugal because she understood how her relationship with the earth should be. 

I wish my children and grandchildren might have met Grandma Minnie Bell. I think that Mr. Coren also would have enjoyed all of her stories about they ways of her childhood and how she learned to live in harmony with nature rather than tearing it apart. Her love of the land was almost spiritual and left a lifelong impression on me. I find myself measuring the damage we humans have done with her baseline of a world that was still untouched by our sometimes destructive ways.

I remember proudly wearing the dresses that Grandma sewed by hand from the sacks of flour that she used to make her biscuits and pies. I smile at the thought of the warmth I felt on cold nights when I lay under the quilts that might have once been parts of shirts or dresses or trousers. I wish for her spirit to inspire all of us to do better for she often cautioned me about what might happen if we forgot to cherish the blessings of nature. Sometimes I fear that we have done far to much damage and don’t seem inclined to stop any time soon. We need to keep thinking about her stories or then passing them along. The children will learn from her wisdom and then maybe the earth will begin to heal.

My grandparents always seemed quite ancient to me. Maybe that’s because they were indeed a good sixty years or more older than I was. They were always wrinkled and grey from the time of my first memories of them. When my grandfather died at the age of one hundred eight I was only thirty nine years old. When my own first grandson was born I was still in my forties, working full time with nary a gray hair on my head. I was known at work and home for my boundless energy and so it was only natural that my relationship with my him would be more playful and active than the one I had with my own grandparents. I enjoyed getting down on the floor with him, laughing and being silly with him. 

I was one very excited grandmother. Even though Andrew was far away my daughter kept us apprised of his milestones with photographs and anecdotes that convinced me of his brilliance and good nature. I travelled to see him as often as possible and then cried on the plane or in the car all the way home. I often wondered if the passengers near me on my flights wondered why I was quietly shedding tears, but I was unable to control my emotions and my sorrow at leaving him. I knew that it would be months before seeing him again. 

Catherine had by this time become ever more in love with the young man with whom she had begun a relationship at the Texas A&M muster. I somehow always had a feeling that my father had sent Jeremy to her. It would have been like him to play matchmaker just as he had done earlier with his best friend and my mother’s sister. Somehow Catherine and Jeremy seemed to be a perfect match. He was serious and steady, a bookend to her impish nature. Together they seemed perfect. 

One Christmas we all converged on Indiana to visit with Maryellen, Scott and Andrew. It was a joyous time when we experienced an exceptionally cold winter in the midwest, a wonder that we rarely saw down south. We played with Andrew and visited the sights, including enjoying a day trip to Chicago. At the time it never occurred to me that Catherine might one day end up in the Windy City, but that is a story for another day. 

While we were all busy living Catherine continued with her studies and graduation from Texas A&M with a degree in Rangeland Ecology Management. Essentially she had the training to care for the land on our planet. She would forevermore be an advocate for treating our good earth with loving care. Her first job would be with an environmental firm in Dallas so we were soon helping her move her things from College Station to an apartment in Arlington, a suburb better known for being the home of the Texas Rangers baseball team. 

She was on her own but only five hours away so we were able to visit her often. A little sheltie dog named Maggie kept her company as did Jeremy who had an internship with Lockheed Martin. Soon the two of them were engaged and planning for a wedding after Jeremy’s graduation. To both my surprise and delight Catherine had decided to move back home and without my knowledge she had interviewed for a job as a science teacher at the school where I was working and had landed the job. 

Catherine and Maggie brought so much life and joy to our home. It was fun having them both there. Our old dog. Red, became like a mother the Catherine’s little pup. I was able to guide Catherine in the daily responsibilities of a teacher. We had fun talking about our mutual experiences and often spent evenings comparing stories. 

Catherine ended up on a sixth grade team with teachers who had taught her when she was a student at the school years before. They took her under their wings and made sure that she would have a successful first year of teaching. A woman named Deller Thompson was especially helpful. Deller had been Catherine’s sixth grade reading teacher and she was as strict as any educator comes, but also incredibly fair. She had challenged Catherine to push herself as a student and now that she was a teacher, Deller pushed her even more. The result was that Catherine proved to be exceedingly talented in conveying science concepts to her students. She used her skills as an artist and her creativity in thinking to plan lessons that made science come alive. 

Meanwhile Maryellen joyfully announced one day that she and Scott and Andrew would soon be moving back to Beaumont. Ninety miles away sounded so much better than a thousand. I knew that it would only take an hour and a half to be with her so I was super excited and so were Mike and Catherine. Life continued to look quite sunny for all of us, especially this first time young Gammy.

I suppose that the nineteen nineties were in many ways one of the best decades of my lifetime. My husband, Mike, and I were doing well in our careers while our daughters were becoming the incredible women we had hoped they would be. I was enjoying my friendships and great times with the extended families of my brothers and cousins. Mike and I were traveling and feeling quite content with our lives and the world around us. While my mother’s mental illness was chronic, my brothers and I had learned how to help her to mostly keep the symptoms under control. I was a happy middle aged woman who was confident that I was living my best life. I also understood the fragility of existence and remained ever ready to shift course when occasions called for change. 

When my daughter, Maryellen, announced that she and her husband were moving from Beaumont to Indiana I adjusted even as I felt a sadness that she would be so far away from home. I had the ability to visit her a couple of times a year and she in turn would come back to Texas on holidays. She and husband, Scott, found good jobs in Lafayette, the home of Purdue University. They were doing well enough financially to invest in a beautiful house located in a neighborhood surrounded by corn fields and good people. I felt that she was building her new life and her independence in a wonderful way. 

I enjoyed visiting Maryellen and Scott and did so as often as possible. Sometimes Mike and I drove there and other times I flew on my own. I delighted in the sights and people of Indiana who seemed to be treating my girl so well. I also enjoyed the adventures that we took whenever I visited. I learned that Indiana is much more interesting than I might have otherwise thought. 

I attended my first state fair there, sampling pies and pickles and viewing livestock. I enjoyed a nearby town that hosted an apple festival each fall and boasted a restaurant that served hearty soups and homemade breads that were delicately crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle. I visited Indianapolis and saw the 500 race track for the first time. I enjoyed the incredible variety of a daylily farm and even laughed at a town that had built a replica of the Alamo in honor of the famous Texas battle. I got to see the place where the movie Hoosiers was filmed and walked through the campus of the University of Notre Dame where I smiled at the sight of “Touchdown Jesus.” I also learned that Chicago was only two hours away and found myself literally falling in love with that amazing city each time we took a day trip there.

I always felt a bit sad whenever I had to leave Maryellen but I knew that I would find a way to return soon. I was proud that she was forging her own way in the world and wanted her to feel free to develop herself according to her own desires. Soon, however, I would find myself wishing that she lived a little closer to my home when she announced that she was expecting a baby, my first grandchild. 

The summer before he was born she and I painted the bedroom that would be the nursery. We created a border of whimsical trains along the ceiling and set up the crib and other furniture. Maryellen made a visit to Houston for a baby shower lovingly hosted by my dear friend Linda who went all out with her always amazing food and hospitality. Everyone important in our lives came and the atmosphere was so joyful and generous. Maryellen left with a car filled with every possible baby item that she might ever need. 

As September came we held our breaths in anticipation of the birth. I kept busy with my work at school. It was early in the academic year so there was much to do that distracted me. Finally Scott called to tell us that Maryellen was in labor. On September 26, a healthy baby boy that they named Andrew entered the world for the first time. He was born “over Texas soil” because Scott had asked us to bring some dirt from our yard in a sealed tin can on our most recent visit to Indiana. We obligingly purchased a container emblazoned with a scene from Texas on its lid then placed a shovel full of good old coastal Texas gumbo inside. Scott was able to convince the doctor to place the container under the bed where Maryellen lay as the birth took place. To this day we tell Andrew that he was born in Indiana but he came to life on Texas ground. 

Of course Mike and I both took off time to rush to Indiana to see the beautiful baby boy and to help Maryellen with chores around the house. It was one of the most wonderful times ever. Andrew was a cuddly baby who was inclined to spend hours sleeping on someone’s chest. Every once in awhile he would squint with one open eye making us laugh with delight. We noted that when he gave us that little glance he resembled “the dread pirate Roberts” from the movie The Princess Bride. He was indeed the center of our family’s joy, our cute little dread pirate who made all of our hearts flutter with unadulterated love.  

Life has a way of moving faster than I can even imagine. One day I’m a little girl and the next my own little girl, Maryellen is graduating from college, engaged to a nice young man, launching her career, and planning a wedding. Such is the way it felt in nineteen ninety-two. I’d been so busy living life that I had hardly noticed the passing of time. I was only forty four years old but I had lived through a lifetime of events. Somehow I felt older and wiser than ever but also amazed that I was already in my so called middle ages. 

Meanwhile my younger daughter. Catherine, was about to begin her own journey to adulthood by entering her freshman year of college. She had been admitted to Texas A&M University but was not quite ready to leave home, choosing instead to spend her first year at the University of Houston while she decided what exactly she wanted to declare as her major. She reminded me so much of myself at the same age, capable of doing just about anything, but unsure of what direction to take. 

I hoped that I had done enough to prepare my two daughters for the surprises that interrupt virtually everyone’s life. I wanted them to be resilient because I knew what kind of things might actually divert their plans. We just never know when the unexpected will enter our lives. All we can do is hope that we will have the fortitude to face whatever challenges come our way. 

The women in our family had all faced daunting setbacks and navigated well through the worst of times. I often used their stories to inspire my girls. It was difficult for them to imagine my two grandmothers whom they had never had the pleasure of knowing. Whenever I of spoke of those two wonderful ladies I’m not so sure that they fully understood the magnitude of their strength. After all, neither of them were able to read or write. They seemed so anachronistic to my thoroughly modern daughters. It fell to my mother and mother-in-law to provide models of the kind of people I hoped Maryellen and Catherine would be. 

I suppose that every mother who has ever lived has had dreams for their children even while understanding that ultimately their offspring must create their own goals. I have always believed that a good parent allows children to be independent in their thinking and to deviate from what has always been viewed as the norm whenever they so choose. I appreciated that one of my daughters had chosen a career in business and the other was leaning toward science. They were also far more progressive in their thinking than I had ever been even though my friends thought of me as a liberal hippy. I suppose that my determination not to overly influence the critical thinking of my daughters led them to feel free to be themselves. 

Eventually Maryellen married her beau, Scott, in a lovely wedding that combined his religion and hers. They moved away to Beaumont where Scott had his first job as an environmental engineer. It was a town about ninety miles away from Houston, so they were able to spread their wings of independence while we were able to easily visit them from time to time. 

It was difficult for Maryellen to find a job in Finance in such a small place so she returned to school to earn a second degree in Accounting, a field that seems to offer job prospects everywhere. Catherine in the meantime had transferred to Texas A&M University and changed her major multiple times just as I had. Eventually she specialized in rangeland ecology, even learning how to drive a tractor and do surveys. Along the way she attended an annual tradition at Texas A&M called Muster. Her intent was to honor my father, the most devoted Aggie of all time, with the ceremony designed to remember former students who had died. 

While she was there she noticed a young man giving her the eye from across the crowd. It was apparent to her that he was flirting. She remembered meeting him previously at a party. He had asked her out for a date and she had turned him down. Suddenly he looked more interesting that he had before. She hoped that he would call her again, but when he did not she took the initiative and called him. The rest would be the blooming of a relationship that would ultimately lead to love, but first both of them had serious business to complete. They wanted their college degrees so they began “dating” by mostly studying together and talking about their futures. 

Meanwhile back at our empty nest I threw myself into my own career with even more abandon than ever. My masters degree was complete and I assumed a leadership role at my school. It was an interesting job that involved working exclusively with the teachers as a facilitator for their needs. My principal had originated the idea and it proved to be so successful that eventually all of the schools in the district created similar positions. It was fun to be a trailblazer, but more importantly to assist my fellow teachers with the many demands continually being placed on them. I was enjoying my work more than ever and would soon be planning to be a fairly young grandmother.