Doctor Grandma

It is New Year’s eve on my 60th year, and you would think I have something to say. By the time you live on this earth for 60 years, you realize that nothing you say will be particularly life changing for anyone else. Each one of us has to live our life, through trials and suffering, celebrations and triumphs. We each come to truth in our own way. Some of us give up along the way, Some decide to persevere.

At 60 years, I realize my biggest accomplishments are already done. I birthed 4 children, 2 in the hospital and 2 at home with a midwife and helpers, my husband always at my side. I had one miscarriage between child no.3 and no.4. We took 2 other teenager temporarily into our home, at different times, for about a year & 1/2 each. We now have 5 grandchildren, 4 boys & 1 girl; and 4 step-grandsons. These are always and forever, my biggest accomplishments in life, and being with any of them at any time, brings me the greatest joy.

I assisted a mother and brother through their last week of life, both times happening through life circumstance, nothing I really planned. I was with my mother when my father died in the hospital, when I was 16 years old, and we cried together for an eternity before returning home to tell my siblings.

In my life, I have held few jobs, though I have worked for most of my life. My first job was to be the hat check girl at the roller rink, checking coats and handing out skates, all while on skates myself. That was at age 15. Since then, I have worked Mr. Donut, Ponderosa steakhouse, Waffle House, Kings Food Host, and Panky’s restaurant from which I got fired. I worked at Ball State Library and then Purdue Libraries for 16 years, enough to get a small retirement check for the rest of my life. At PU Libraries I was a clerk, filing cards in the card catalog, checking in and binding periodicals and later mastering research on the computer to the point where I quit my job and returned to graduate school, eventually earning a PhD at age 55. This was another big accomplishment in my life. It has inspired my kids, other women and friends more than I ever imagined. I became a professor of sociology, and a good one. My other job was being a stay-at-home mom for 11 years, which was the best of times. I reached a point where I needed to be out with other adults, but still wouldn’t have done it had we not needed the money.

I have also remained married to the same man for 42 years. This is an amazing accomplishment but one I can offer little advice about. It takes 2 people, forever continually coming back together and making the marriage work, for this to happen. You can only control 1/2 of that partnership. Sometimes he did better at this and sometimes I did. But we always came back to the center.

At age 60 I will say that our focus now has to be health. For reasons of self preservation, if we don’t do it now, it’s not going to be good. We have to lose weight, find a way to do some exercise regularly, and eat healthy. We are playing with fate and it’s all a matter of time now. The more we fight, the longer we live, and that’s the reality.

At age 60 I have learned that you can live through almost anything if you decide to. Sleep is the greatest healer. If today feels terrible, go to bed. Things nearly always feel better in the morning. Make a plan for your next step, anything, just one thing. Do it and make another. Just move forward and things tend to open up or work out. Have faith. Trust in God and go forward. Sometimes that is all you can do. Do some service, something nice for someone else. We are all connected.

On this night, I remember nights as a child, staying up late and running outside to bang pans loudly and shout to the neighbors, at midnight. When our kids were little, many games of Uno and Trivial pursuit, and many movies with people sprawled all over the living room, snacks being available. Tonight, our kids live in 4 different states from us, and we are alone. Tomorrow I put a small corned beef & cabbage in the crockpot just for the 2 of us. How very strange. Happy New Year.

What MLK Day means to me

A day to remember all the sacrifices that have been made by those who have paved the way before us,
A day to go back once again and listen to the voice of one of the greatest speakers and motivators toward peace and brotherhood for all of America, that we have ever known,
A day to ponder how we are living our lives and what efforts toward making a difference we are involved in,
A day to rededicate ourselves to the cause of creating a more just society,
A day to remember the struggle it has taken to get here, the ferocity of hatred and the entrenchment of discrimination, that took sacrifice and courage, and for some the loss of their homes or their lives, to overcome,
A day to realize we are still in the fight,
A day of celebration of the oneness of humankind.

New Year’s eve 2011. The eve of a new year in my life. What will it bring?

First of all, wordpress thinks it is bringing snow, as it has snow coming down in the background as I write this. That CERTAINLY is not true. Just took a mile or so walk, w/ a hooded sweatshirt on, unzipped, and almost had to remove it. The sun was out most of the day, an absolutely lovely day.

Hopefully this new year will first of all bring my husband a job. Unemployed for 7 mos. now and no unemployment check. He is owed an unemployment check but will never get it. This was explained in a past post.

My life has become very simple. We have what we have for money, & that’s it. The only thing we have to decide is, how to juggle the bills to not get sued or attacked, and keep the lights, water and Internet on. The TV is gone– have lived w/o it now for a few months. Our phones have to stay on. Even those I would get rid of, but the companies have you in some assenine contract for 2 years, and you CAN’T turn them off!! You can turn off 1 line for 3 mos., & then they turn it back on.

As we go through this hard time again, I am amazed how cruel a society we live in. Absolutely cruel. People want to blame everyone else at the bottom besides those at the top making these decisions to keep the rest of us groveling for a decent place to live, a car to drive to our jobs in, and enough food to eat. It is just ridiculous.

The hardest thing for me, is to just wait. Wait and wait some more. Wait past the time you thought you couldn’t wait any longer. You have no choice, really, there is nothing else to do except possibly make a huge change and move back to the land of industry, where my husband COULD at least have a JOB. But we have friends here, we love our community, & we promised the Fedl govt. we’d live in this house at least another year, or we owe the President his kick back money. Don’t want to be in that situation. We can’t afford it.

So my life is simple. I don’t even consider Starbucks anymore, it’s 1/2 hour away. Have grown used to making my own coffee every single day. We eat simply. We have eggs, toast, cereal, or oatmeal every morning, a salad for lunch, and one actual meal per day. The night meal includes meat, usually potatoes and onions, and some sort of vegetable. Nothing elaborate. Same every day. We find ourselves buying occasional candy bars or cokes, because of the craving for sweets, and just something a little bit FUN. OH BOY! We don’t go out to movies, don’t go out to eat, don’t even go into town really because we have to save the gas money. Certainly did not make it home to Indiana this holiday season!

Take a 3-mi walk as often as possible, watch a few tv shows days after they’re on real tv, on our computer, a few movies, play games on computer, read, go see friends, for “entertainment”. It’s an exciting life.

This break for me has been an organization break. I went thru stuff in our garage once again, made a list of everything we own for will purposes, organized my children’s class stuff again for whenever it will be used, read one children’s book I’d never read before. In this next week, I hope to finish major work on a journal article for publication; get my syllabi done; go in to another school where I’m teaching a class part-time for extra money this Spring; work on family history a little; read my text books;

and be thankful. Thankful for my kids, my 4 grandkids and 1 new one on the way. Thankful for my husband & friend & our time together. Thankful for faith which brings hope. Hope is about the most important thing I could wish for everyone this new year. There is always hope.

We have a small pork roast in the crockpot which I bought on sale tonight, and which will be ready late this evening while we watch movies together…. that’s nice and cozy.

Boo! 

Halloween is kind of a dumb holiday, or a fascinating one. I mean, what is it based on, really? Does anyone know? I think part of the reason it is so popular is that it is just fun. It’s fun to dress up, pretend we’re something other than what we are. It’s fun to play. Adults love it because they rarely take the time to play. Half the fun is dressing up your kids, finding them a new outfit every year.

When I think about it, I cannot remember one cool Halloween outfit I had as a kid. All I know is that my mom would never have made us one! They were always store-bought. And I hated the masks. I might have tried it on for pictures, but it always came off during the walk. The heck with that, you can’t SEE. Or breathe.

I can remember Halloweening in snow. It was rare, but something that happens in the north that never surprises you. It’s just part of life you know you have no control over. Kinda ruined some of the coolest Halloween outfits, but you just put a jacket on underneath the outfit…. But usually, it was just a cool, Fall evening. And I know that my parents did not go with me. We went out with our friends and walked until we were so tired we didn’t care anymore. We went as far as we could. There was always more candy just around the next corner. I think we were given limits of distance and streets, especially when we were very young.

I remember being back home and being scared of the older kids who would come to the door “late at night”.

I have better memories of walking my kids around the neighborhood, and always looking for crappy old clothes we could make an outfit out of, or sometimes going to Goodwill. I was not good at costumes. My kids were usually better at it than me, and the main thing they wanted was candy. We bought store- bought ones sometimes.

There is a funny story of our neighborhood on Perrin Ave. in Lafayette, which all my kids know very well, but I will write it. Walking up to one porch which was all decorated, there was a mummy sitting in a chair. Just as the kids would go to ring the doorbell, the mummy would come alive and say, “YOU WANT SOME CANDY??”  Turns out, it was the man of the house sitting out there. Funniest time was when his daughter came out onto the porch with a phone, “Dad it’s for you! Dad– Dad…”  The mummy then responded very irritated, “I TOLD you not to bother me!”