Channeling Pearl

I often wonder if the memories that I am helping create with my kids are as worthwhile as those of my own childhood.  I’m not referring to memories that might better be left suppressed—with siblings, there are always things better left forgotten.  More so, I am referring to the memories that materialized from holidays that began in the Oberlin home of my grandparents.  

Memories of cousins, uncles, aunts, and food!  Memories of my grandmother Pearl, with a tight smile and even tighter stockings, who could produce a Thanksgiving feast complete with sides that surpassed all expectation.  Long after my grandfather died, she continued to play hostess to nine grandchildren, their parents, and an extra guest or few as well.

Eventually, as my grandmother grew older and it became more difficult for her, the Thanksgiving spoon passed from my Grandmother to my mom. After my Grandmother died, holidays on Glenhurst became more and more distant.

While I have changed in my own role, no longer a child, but parent, I’ve noticed that Thanksgiving for me has begun to change as well.  Instead of wishing for Thanksgiving to snowball into Christmas, I instead now tarry.  I find I enjoy the anticipation that the holiday season brings, more so than I love its finale.

Once eager to grow up, I am now eager to coast. 

Once eager to break away from the past, I am now searching for ways to include it.

In my forties, I find that I channel my grandmother in ways I never thought I would.  In no way anxious to take on her role of meal preparation for the masses, I do find I channel Pearl in ways I never thought I did or would.

I channel her when I prepare her dishes.  I channel her in her tight smiles.

My hope is that my children will remember this Thanksgiving fondly.  I hope they remember the joy of family, food, and thankfulness. I want them to know that life is a feast and is meant to be enjoyed in the moment.  Whether or not the gravy turns out is irrelevant. 

If Pearl were still here, I think she’d agree. 

In the fifteen plus years that she’s been gone, I’ve dreamed of her often.  And in my dreams, she smiles—wide and easily.

Michael Myers, and Zombies, and Witches, Oh My!

There is no better time than mid-October.  The obscene heat of the summer has passed into memory and the countdown to Christmas is at least a good three weeks away.

Of all holidays, I think Halloween is my favorite.  Maybe it speaks to the abnormal paranormal in me.  With no “other” worldly experiences of my own, I anxiously scour the plethora of TV listings for ghost stories and tales of the occult, like a child awaiting Christmas specials.

As a kid, I would happily hum “Five Little Pumpkins” as I cut out purple bats from ratty construction paper.  “Have You Seen the Ghost of John?” was carefully harnessed to doctoring simple treble clefs into witches on broomstick.

It shouldn’t surprise that one of my first preteen parties was not a birthday party, but a Halloween bash.  I presented my clairvoyant self with my cardboard Ouija Board to a room full of sixth graders. 

It was then I first learned that not everyone is an enthusiast of the occult.  One friend left the séance before I had a chance to uncork my tarot cards. 

She needn’t have worried.  The sixth sense eludes me.

This year, my grown up quandary revolves around three-year-old Max who, it also turns out, shirks the dark side. 

Store displays of rattling skeletons and cackling witches bring him to a near catatonic state before breaking free in convulsions of sobs and tremors.  I almost expect him to extend and bend his index finger while chanting, “Max isn’t here, Mrs. Torrance.”

His pirate costume, hanging along side of Kenny’s fireman suit, will most likely remain unworn.  Mostly because no boy really wants a to wear a Seinfeld puffy shirt and the act of trick or treating down a street with kids in costumes is likely to put him into an inmate-state-of-mind. 

The lure of candy is not enough.

This past weekend, as I folded laundry and watched Scariest Halloween Attractions on the Travel Channel, Max’s one eye was transfixed on the screen while the rest of him was tightly wound around my legs.

Michael Myers, and zombies, and witches, oh my!

Ironically, I can relate.  As intrigued with the Halloween genre as I am, I wouldn’t last any longer than the opening credits in any slasher movie. Better I lie down and wait for the inevitable, than to trip and fall in exaggerated procrastination to my death.  Our recent excursion to Sandusky’s Haunted Manor only confirms that.  While my family laughed in hysterics, I became easy prey for the actors. 

It turns out, it doesn’t matter how brave a spectator you are.  What counts is how brave you are in the trenches.

This Halloween, Max and I will probably trick or treat down the candy aisle at WalMart, while the braver participants in our family brave the city streets in search of loot.  Max can wear his puffy shirt while we watch The Great Pumpkin.  And I will smugly enjoy the end of a season that inevitably will turn nightmarish as the Christmas countdown draws near.

In an Instant

Last Tuesday, Kenny didn’t get off the bus.  As I sat at the dining room table, drinking coffee while leafing through a magazine, Sam walked in the door and said,

“Did you pick Kenny up from school?  He wasn’t on the bus.”

In an instant, life stopped.

With the next breath, I was in the van racing toward Eastwood. As I rushed the stops and starts in the five blocks separating our home from school, the world seemed far more infinite than I ever before imagined.

Kenny could be out there anywhere. 

With anyone.

Arriving breathless at the school, I all but sprinted past a school administrator who explained, “Someone called to say he was a car rider.”

Someone who?  Not me!

As I rounded the corner and found him safely riding the bench, animatedly talking to teachers to his left and right, I almost sobbed in relief.

In that moment, I swear, I took my second breath.

“Hi, Mom!” he chirped.  “You’re late!”

I admit, all of this sounds pretty dramatic, because my eight minutes of torment hardly compares to how the Colorado parents of Jessica Ridgeway must feel right now. I’m pretty certain it’s probably been at least a week since their last breath.  

Today I read police say they’ve found a body.

A body.

As a mother, I pray not Jessica’s.

The mother in me wills it.

“I want her to walk through that door.  I NEED her to walk through that door,” Sarah Ridgeway pleaded on national television.

As I hugged Kenny, it reminded me of the time nearly ten years ago Mayle got “lost” walking home from school.  Her ordeal brought her home by way of Ben Franklin to a driveway full of police officers. 

She was 20 minutes late.  I’d like to say I’ve mellowed a little since then, but I haven’t. 

Our children are so small on a planet so unaware, and worry isn’t enough to keep all of them safe.  I’d trade my sanity for their health and safety.  Sometimes I think I already have.

Until Jessica comes home, a mother aches.  In solidarity, I ache too. 

And in solidarity, each day my children come home safely, I will remember with every breath to be thankful.  

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Last week, I started dreaming about sleep.  Those who know me and have heard me describe my more Technicolor dreams know that sleeping dreams are strange, even for me. 

After sharing my dream with my astute co-worker, he asked,

“Does that mean you’re doubly rested for having slept twice?”

Rested is not a word I would use to describe the past twenty plus years of my life. 

When Madison was a baby, I put two scoops of formula between two slices of bread for his 3 a.m. feeding. Lucky for him, I realized my mistake halfway up the stairs—it’s no wonder he loves carbs as much as he does. 

Thankfully, I don’t have insomnia; in fact, I think I may have the opposite.  It’s almost unnatural how quickly my body succumbs to sleep.  Sleep for me occurs sometime during commercial breaks.  As soon as my eyes glide shut, my mouth falls open. 

Sometimes sleep occurs mid-peanut butter sandwich and is discovered only by its fossilized remains when I make the bed the next morning.  For me, sleep is not illusive.  Once my body stops moving, my mind isn’t far behind. 

But for now, extended slumber is not meant to be.  This past weekend, my alarm clock sounded to the unmistakable ring of thousands of Legos being dropped to the floor, sometime around 6:30. 

The first avalanche I ignored.

The fourth expelled me from dreamland.

As I assessed Max atop his mountain of mess with a steaming diaper of excrement, I could only shake my head and wander down to the comfort of my coffee pot.  

As I passed Madison and Stancey’s room, I felt twinges of jealousy as I heard their duet of slumber from opposite sides of the hallway.  Madison’s soliloquy persevered until early afternoon.

Later, when I cleaned up the mess from Max’s early morning, I began to analyze my dream of sleep.  I’ve read that sleep in dreams is a sign of contentment.  Whoever thought up that one obviously wasn’t the mother of six, because I have my own analysis. 

I’m guessing that my sleep bank is overdrawn and it’s going to take more than one night of uninterrupted slumber a week to yank me out of the red. Realistically, Max is at least a decade away from reaching the sleep stamina of his siblings.

And until then, I’ll try and not analyze my dreams too much. 

And who knows, this weekend may just be the weekend.  And if it isn’t, at least I have my coffee pot to console me.