Remembering

Thursday night, I got the call we all dread getting. The call that says someone you love is gone and that as a result, others you love are hurting in ways you can't fix. I've gotten this call many times, as most of us have. Usually, it's not a huge surprise - usually, the person is elderly, or has been ill for a long time. Not so this time. I went into a kind of shock, which is why it's late Sunday night and I'm just now posting.

That night, my dear, kind uncle passed away suddenly. He had just turned 70, but you'd never have known it, based on his appearance and vitality. He seemed more like someone in his late fifties.

Some of my earliest memories in life involve him. He was pretty badass when I was little and seemed larger than life (perhaps in part because he was over six feet tall). He wore combat boots sometimes. He was a Vietnam vet. As we grew up, he took up car racing. He had an unreal knack for making good time on the trip from PA to MA or vice versa. He was a giver of sound, level-headed advice on many topics.

He was a gentle soul, but although I don't think I ever heard him raise his voice, we all just knew as kids that he was the one you didn't mess with. We weren't scared of him, really, we just knew that whatever we were trying to pull, we weren't going to put it over on him and it probably wasn't worth trying. But we knew without question that he loved us and was unfailingly focused on our well being.

As I got older, and became a truly stereotypical middle child, always feeling invisible and/or inadequate, my uncle was someone who had an uncanny and welcome ability to make me feel like I was very, very important, and that whatever answer I was giving to his questions of, "What's new, Linds?" were the only thing in the world he wanted to hear about right then.

When my husband joined our family, he was, of course, welcomed by my close-knit family as a whole, but even he picked up on how warm and genuine my uncle was. And my son, likewise, immediately adored my uncle and followed him around whenever he was near. At my brother's wedding last summer, although he'd only met my uncle a couple of times before, he ran to him, jumped into his arms, and proceeded to be generally enthralled the entire weekend.

It's hard to wrap my head around a world without this man in it. He wasn't someone I saw all that often, but he was a strong and constant presence nonetheless. I will miss him more than words can express. I wish my words could somehow ease the ache that my aunt and three cousins and their families are feeling, but I know that's an awfully tall order for mere words.

I hope my uncle is enjoying the peace wherever he is, perhaps chatting with my grandfather. I hope he knows how loved he was, and what an impact he had on all of us who knew and loved him. I hope he knows how much I'm going to miss being asked, "What's new, Linds?"

Possibly Overly Self-Centered Ramblings (at least I'm honest...right?)

ABC, or at least the Boston/Manchester ABC affiliates, pulled a bait and switch with today's Oprah broadcast. The guide told me that today was the blooper show. Promos have run all week for it, in fact. Instead, what I saw was the first few minutes of the show the guide claimed played yesterday, about a little boy whose father and step mother were unbelievable monsters who kept him chained and locked in a bathroom closet. I don't know that I would knowingly have watched that episode - thinking it was on yesterday, I sure didn't. But it caught me off guard and I started to watch. I think I shouldn't have.

There are certain news stories, or stories on Oprah, or what have you, that stick with me. Most of them are about little boys. I'd say it's a result of my being the mother of a little boy, which I think is part of it, but this actually started long before I had him. It probably started when my second grade teacher described, in detail, what had happened to Adam Walsh (which I think I've mentioned here before). Or maybe it started because I had two little brothers, of whom I was, and am, fiercely protective.

There was the case maybe a month or so ago, wherein a mother and her boyfriend beat and kicked a three year old to death for wetting his pants. I don't remember how I stumbled across that one, but it quite literally made me physically ill to think of it, particularly since I'm also in the process of potty training a three year old, and while I realize how frustrating it is to do this, I cannot, cannot, cannot imagine ever hurting him for wetting his pants. He gets so upset when he does it that I can't imagine making that worse.

I think what really killed me with this Oprah was when they played the police recordings of this kid, at six years old, describing what had happened to him. Sure, it would've been horrifying regardless, but hearing that little voice describe it was physically painful.

Those ubiquitous "they" always say that when you become a mother, you suddenly cannot hear these kinds of stories without relating them to your own child/children. I guess that's true. But since this is a lifelong thing with me, there is this part of me that feels like it's my higher self or intuition telling me I should DO something about it- help in some way. But...what? That's what I need to figure out.

If I Were a Sociology Grad/Post-grad Student...

I've been thinking quite a bit lately about the new war on women in the U.S. Recent developments, like the changes in recommendations on routine breast screenings, the all out war on Planned Parenthood (where women do NOT, contrary to ignorant belief only receive abortions, but routine pap smears, cancer screenings, birth control, education and a host of other services), the ridiculous proposals in Congress for things like IRS investigations of abortions to assure they were paid for "properly" and investigations of miscarriages to make sure they were "spontaneous"...the list goes on. What I wonder is, where does this resentment come from? The proposals I've read about have all come from men. In the GOP. Mostly in the southern and midwestern parts of the country. Hmm. So...here's what occurs to me.

These areas are also among the hardest hit in the current economic crisis. Not that we haven't ALL been hit hard, but just bear with me for a minute. Since 2008, we've probably all read about rampant unemployment and how it has had a far greater impact on male breadwinners than anyone else, right? We've probably all read about how women are, for the first time in history, taking on a greater role in this country as breadwinners, because they are cheaper (on the whole) to employ than men are and have therefore been less likely to lose jobs. Not to mention that the direct-sales industry, of which I'm a part and can attest, has grown during this period, because it's such a great way for a woman to support her family or to supplement lost income while still being a caretaker for her family.

Do you see yet where I'm going with this? Maybe the resentment comes from a feeling of futility. A feeling of losing power. A feeling that the longstanding fear of men around the U.S. - that women would "take over" is coming true for many of them. I mean, it just can't be a coincidence, can it?

So, that's what is making me wish I were in some kind of program in which I could study this phenomenon for a dissertation. Fascinating stuff, and I'm pretty certain I'm onto something here.

Growing Up

I've been feeling like a rather inadequate parent today. Rainy Mondays, you know. It got me thinking about my own parents, and about the kind of parent I WANT to be.

Growing up, my four siblings and I had it good. We didn't have a lot of "stuff," necessarily, although I think in the grand scheme, we did ok on that front. But we had so much love. There was never so much as a shadow of a question that we were the most important things in our parents' worlds. Our Mom all but literally turned herself inside out to make our lives everything hers growing up was not. (Hers, growing up, went back and forth between difficult and downright horrific.) Our Dad worked his fingers to the bone to make sure we had enough, and he did his best to create the aura of love and security his parents represented to us all (I think, in some ways, he may have even surpassed them, with his ability to truly accept us as we were). We were, and are, really, extraordinarily lucky.

Of course, some of this, I really only realized after becoming a parent myself. My early twenties were marked by an obsession not to have the same financial struggles they had. This is the number one reason I don't have five children myself, nor will I. Because having four siblings was really amazing in so many ways, but that shit was expensive for my parents and it's certainly not getting any cheaper these days. I had a fixation on not making their mistakes, financially. And I think some of that did me some good, for sure. But I've also come to realize that we all have financial stress. It's a fact of adult life. The best we can do is to live within our means and work as hard as we can to achieve success.

But I AM a parent now. And when I think about the mother I want to be, I think of combining the best qualities of each of my parents - my mother's passion for education, nutrition, and closeness, my father's warmth and support. Am I succeeding? I hope so. It doesn't always feel like it...

We all question our parenting from time to time. Again, a fact of life. But what I do know is that my son is happy and that he knows, without a shadow of a question, that he is loved. The rest may be a work in progress, but he's got the foundation.

Love and Fear

The other night when I couldn't sleep, it was because, as occasionally happens to me, I became fixated on the thought that something (I don't know what, precisely) was going to happen to B. I've gotten better at managing that anxiety, which all mothers experience, I know, over the past three plus years. I've gotten better, too, at being truly IN the moment and enjoying my time with him as much as I can. But still, as a lifelong insomniac and anxiety sufferer, there are still those moments, late at night, when that fear grips my chest and won't let go until I swallow some Benadryl (I'm pregnant, so I only take Benadryl) and finally pass out.

Today, probably because I'm still overtired, and the weather is crappy (yet again), and I'm annoyed at my bandaged finer (long story, but the ring finger of my right hand is all gauzed up and it's annoying), I've been kind of cranky. E came home early from work and has born the brunt of the crankiness. He's enormously patient with this, thank God. But then I read a blost post on one of the blogs I follow, about a woman who lost her husband, and it reminded me once again that I shouldn't take that stuff out on E, because a) I'm so lucky that he's here and healthy and b) he's like the greatest husband that ever lived and does not, in any way, deserve my crankiness.

Love and fear are so intertwined, aren't they? When you love someone, isn't there always an element of fear that something will happen to take them away from you? And sometimes, it can be so easy to fall prey to that fear, and hold ourselves at arms' length, or to try to actively prevent those things. But can we, really? Isn't the best thing we can do just to make the most of the good times? To cherish the important people in our lives while we have them? To open ourselves up to as much love as we can, since in the end, the love is what gets us through those tough times, whether real or imaginary (the times, not the love)? I think so.

So, instead of being ruled that fear, I try to seize as many moments as I can. Of course, I still have those rough nights. I'm a work in progress. But I'm trying.

Someday...

Someday, I will go to bed and fall asleep. Someday, I won't have a pit of anxiety in my solar plexus. Someday, my head hitting the pillow will NOT be a signal to my brain to start scrolling uncontrollably through all the horrible scenarios that could befall my family. Someday, I will feel peace. I will feel, in the night, the faith that carries me through the day. I will feel happy and the happy images in my mind will float me into a sleep that will last until morning. And I will enjoy the hell out of that day.

Ups and Downs

Up: My "cousin" J finally had her baby yesterday (more than a week overdue, God love her), which is such a joyful thing. I'm so excited for her to experience motherhood and to see her flourish at it.

Down: If the pregnancy I lost had made it, based on when I gave birth to B, I probably would've had the baby sometime around today, give or take. And even though I'm pregnant again now, I can't help but reflect on that baby, and what he or she would've been like, and why he or she couldn't stay.

Up: As if sensing this, the baby I'm carrying now (a girl, btw), has really picked it up in the movement department this week. She's kind of a maniac in there, frankly. I'm actually able to feel her if I put my hand on my belly. Awesome AND reassuring.

Down: Feeling pretty stressed out this week. Not sleeping well AT ALL, for some reason. BLAH.

I would say the ups outweigh the downs pretty handily, so that's something.