family

My Mother, My Muse

December 23, 2021 by admin

Today I am not trying to sell books. For that reason I am not including purchase links to the ones I mention below. I just want to try to express what is in my heart, though words are difficult to come by right now. Please bear with me. I have written about some of what follows before, but it bears repeating. Sometimes we have to tell a story many times to connect the right threads.

On December 19, my mother, who I jokingly said had more lives than two cats, said goodbye to the world. Her determined, fighting spirit could no longer master the body that had grown too fragile, too frail.

I write this today because those two telephone calls totally changed the trajectory of my life in ways too many to count. Two calls that gave me an entirely different life.

In 1998, a few months after I’d had a stillbirth, my second pregnancy loss in nine months, Mom and I talked on the phone. My husband at the time and I were going to a support group for parents. I learned that she and Dad were grieving as deeply as I was, and I quickly learned about the unique qualities of a grandparent’s grief. She asked me if I could find them a book that would help them, and I assured her I would.

There was just one problem: at the time, there were no such books currently in print. I managed to find an out-of-print book and some pamphlets, but that was it.

Like a lot of people, I’d “always wanted to write a book someday.” Turns out, When a Grandchild Dies: What to Do, What to Say, How to Cope, was that book. I gathered information from grandparents who said they’d never been able to share their story with anyone before. To this day, WGD continues to help people.

WGD helped me, too. It helped me as a grieving mom, and my parents, but also guided me to the writing path I had longed for. A further side benefit was, when I met my current husband, WGD made him want to get to know me better.

All this from one telephone call.

Fast forward to 2014. We were planning a trip to Scotland, and I asked Mom if there was anything she wanted me to see on her behalf. Her answer surprised me: “I’d like to know where my great-grandfather is buried,” she said. That simple remark led to my finding him, but also learning that the woman who bore his child was not who we thought she was…and I discovered Jane Thorburn, who had disappeared from the family history. This led to a new interest in genealogy, but also to The Factory Girl and the Fey. The lack of details from Jane’s life could only be filled in by fiction.

The struggle to finish Factory Girl took years. It was an unruly book, a new genre for me, and one that punched all my emotional buttons. As Mom’s health and vitality began to fail, I feared I wouldn’t get it done in time for her to read it. I sent her drafts, just in case. Then, finally, I was able to send her a real book.

It’s too soon to say what finishing Factory Girl will lead to for me, but I have a feeling more major life changes are yet to come.

All because of one telephone call.

There were likely countless other times when her words influenced me, and no doubt they will surface in the coming weeks and months. Thanks, Mom, for being my muse. Say hi to Dad for me. Love you.

Building a Happy Empty Nest

August 10, 2011 by admin

My husband insists that as children near college age, something happens hormonally with both the kids and the parents. That “something” causes us to suffer less—and even celebrate—when they finally leave home. The closer the time came for his kids to head off to college, the giddier he became. We were ready and determined to create a Happy Empty Nest.

Having come into a home with twins in their senior year in high school, I was, admittedly, reluctant to let them go. I had always wanted kids, and I liked having them around. By the time they left, I had just gotten comfortable with my new role as stepmother after 45+ years of childless freedom. As my hubby threatened to break out the beer, I had a good cry.

Of course, back in the day when our generation first left home, we didn’t have cell phones, e-mails, or instant messenger programs. We had landlines (how quaint) and sent letters back and forth. Neither my husband nor I anticipated how little we would sense their absence. The empty nest has changed. Some days, they might as well be in the room, we talk with them so much!

Moms of the world who hate sending their children away from home may take comfort in this new accessibility. I have to ask, though, is this accessibility good? If we’re not always available and let a phone call go to voice mail, we have found that the children find other ways to solve their own problems. Isn’t that part of what we want?

Plus, I think that an essential part of building a happy empty nest means finding out who we are when we are not parents. Husbands and wives need to get reacquainted with each other, and most of us have set aside our own dreams, at least for a time, to handle the care and feeding of the young. What were those dreams, anyway? What a great time to explore—as long as we hang up the phone long enough to do so!

Of course, while we are getting comfortable with our new identities, the children tend to come home from time to time. At first, it’s the long summer and winter breaks, and a shorter spring break. These are awkward times; they have lived as adults, and suddenly, on visits home, they are subject to rules and demands that they don’t want. Some want to be treated like young children again, whiling their vacation away in front of the television while someone else prepares their meals.

The Happy Female Empty Nester, in order to stay happy, will need to insist on more participation. After all, we are starting to live our dreams, so we don’t feel like waiting on young adults hand and foot anymore.

Then someone gets a summer job that requires time away from home. Maybe one of the children wants to go off with friends on spring break. They graduate from college and, hopefully, get jobs.

This is where my husband and I are in the process. Both kids have graduated from college. One is working, while the other is taking an additional year of specialized education. It’s exciting to watch them take on their own lives, as well as to have more time to focus on ours. We’re turning the upstairs into guestrooms for families that may expand at some point. Oh, wait, that means possible grandchildren that Grandma and Grandpa will babysit. Hmm, maybe the empty nest isn’t empty for long after all.