Read Elsewhere: Anna Quindlen

From Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen:

"Sometimes I tell my children - well, actually, frequently I tell my children - that the single most important decision they will make is not where to live, or what to do for a living, it's who they will marry. Part of this is the grandchild factor; I want mine to have two great parents if at all possible. But part is because the span of their years will be so marked by the life they build, day by day, in tandem with another."

Beatrice

My grandma passed away yesterday. She was my mom's mom, the grandma I was closest to growing up. The one who had us over for sleepovers and let us shoot BB guns off the back porch at leftover utility line flags. The one with a huge backyard with a clothesline and a basement with spare bedrooms where my brother and I slept. The one who loved crossword puzzles and spoke German and Dutch and wrote me long letters from Florida in the winter, with spidery handwriting and drawings of the layout of their condo and maybe five or ten dollars inside. The one who was always doing dishes or wiping the counter. The one who served Ritz crackers and Schuler's bar cheese on Sundays when we went for coffee after church, who poured me iced tea out of a brown Tupperware pitcher. The one who came to all my birthday parties, hosted our Christmas Eve gatherings, went on our annual summer camping trip, cooked me the best fried potatoes ever with the container of bacon grease she kept under the sink. The one who came to the hospital to hold baby Annie on her first day of life. The one who canned peaches and pears and made strawberry jam and drove a school bus for disabled kids.

She was smart, stubborn, fastidious, faithful, and serious, though I remember her laughing a lot too. She drank coffee from morning to night. She smelled like lipstick and lotion. She had Alzheimer's, like her own mother did, and she hasn't been the same grandma to me for at least five years now. I brought her flowers and ate cake with her on her birthday in October. I saw her last weekend and I was stunned. She was less like my grandmother and more like a baby bird, lying in bed, unable to talk, unable to eat, opening her eyes off and on when we spoke to her or held her hand. For the last week, the image has been with me as I go about all the things I go about. As I was falling asleep, I was thinking My grandma is dying. As I stretched my hamstrings in downward dog, I was thinking My grandma is dying. As I hugged and kissed the girls when they got home from school, I was thinking My grandma is dying. As I took a bite of food, laughed with a friend, wrote an article, drove my car, shoveled snow, talked to my mom on the phone, read to my daughter before bed: My grandma is dying.

And now she's gone. She leaves behind my grandpa, her husband of 64 years, a number that is incomprehensible to me, and her four children, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren. I am at once guiltily relieved that she is no longer suffering in that bed and incredibly sad that she is no longer in the world with me. I'll never hold her hand again. I'll never smell her smell. Two months ago, I still had both my grandmas; now I have neither.

I have friends who have lost parents, siblings, unborn children. This -- me losing my grandparents in their 80s and 90s -- is not particularly tragic, I know. It's simply sad. So for today, I'm trying to get down the good memories as best I can before they fade. I'm trying to find the threads of these two beautiful, smart, funny, strong, stubborn women in myself and in my girls. I'm trying to remember that, in the word of a favorite, Ray Bradbury, "no person ever died that had a family."

"Important thing is not the me that's lying here, but the me that's sitting on the edge of the bed looking back at me, and the me that's downstairs cooking supper, or out in the garage under the car, or in the library reading. All the new parts, they count. I'm not really dying today. No person ever died that had a family. I'll be around a long time. A thousand years from now a whole township of my offspring will be biting sour apples in the gumwood shade." - Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

On the first night, we stood in line for our rental car under the Florida stars and watched the palm trees wave around in the breeze. It had snowed that morning here at home and we were just so happy to be someplace warm. Jason struggled with the carseat and finally had to put the top up on the Mustang convertible we thought would be fun for the girls to ride in for four days.

"It's like a convertible!" Jemma said. She had recently risen from her position lying prone across my carry-on with her socks and shoes scattered about the airport floor.

"It IS a convertible," said Annie. We got in and shot down the highway to our hotel, waited around to check in, waited for someone to come bring linens for the pullout couch where the girls would sleep, waited for sleep to come in spite of the kicking and general malaise that comes with sharing a bed in an unfamiliar place. We slept fitfully, wanting to see where we were and what we could do.

On the first morning, we woke up bright and early and walked on the beach while our shadows were still long. We saw two dolphins very close to shore and collected a bag full of shells. (It is easier to love your children when they are running wild on a beach on the Gulf of Mexico than it is at 3:30 a.m. when you have to go in and settle their sleep-fighting.) Then we went back to the pool and swam until lunch. There was a water slide and music and, really, it was all we wanted.

We ate lunch with Jason's parents at their condo and spent the rest of the day with them, swimming more and wandering around downtown Naples, getting frozen yogurt and happy hour drinks on a deck overlooking the water. We tucked sleepy girls in their bed after dinner, and there was no fighting that night, just the hard sleep of children who have been mostly underwater and in the sunshine.

The second day we mixed things up: beach all morning, lunch at our pool, afternoon hopping from the hot tub to the water slide and back to the pool. I went running along the path to the beach before the sun was hot. The girls found a tiny coconut that sank and spent hours diving for it. Jemma dove down to 8 1/2 feet one time and came triumphantly back to the surface, her pink goggles fogged, the coconut in her hand. They had to be literally dragged from the pool every hour or two and forced to drink water and reapply sunscreen. Jason and I lounged by the side in chairs, reading The Sunday New York Times Magazine and Anne Lamott, sipping orange mojitos and water with lemon, eating Chex Mix and almonds, looking around and smiling, cannonballing in from time to time. At 2:30, Jemma asked to go take a nap, so I took her back and we both slept for an hour and a half. We went out to dinner in Old Naples and the girls charmed the acoustic guitar player by requesting Bob Marley and James Taylor. We got hazelnut and chocolate gelato, then watched the sun set from the fishing pier and played frisbee in the leftover light.

The third day Jason and I swam laps in the morning and then, predictably, alternated between the beach and the pool for the rest of the day. He and the girls hiked down to the inlet to watch an osprey catch fish and to hunt for tiny mangrove crabs. I built an elaborate sand castle and river system with them when they returned. We swam in salt water and chlorine and applied sunscreen every hour. Jemma's under eyes and Annie's cheeks still got pink. We went back to our room for lunch and ate leftovers while the girls did cartwheels and played statues in the grass. Late afternoon, we met Jason's parents and their friends for cocktails before leaving the girls with them and eating homemade pasta and clams on our own on 5th St. We went in the hot tub before bed.

The fourth day we went running on the beach and drank coffee by the pool before stuffing all the things into suitcases and wishing we could stay one more day. We swam for one last afternoon at the condo and biked around town while the girls had their toenails painted by Aunt Bonnie. We took one last ride in the convertible back to the airport, and Annie cried the whole way. The girls fell asleep on the plane, and then Jemma took her turn crying (and also refusing to walk) when we landed back at home close to 11:00 p.m., where it was colder and darker than we were used to.

The fifth day we were a little disoriented, a little sun kissed, a lot grateful for what I'd call our best, easiest, most successful family vacation yet.

Christmas and Birthday, Recapped

Now that Christmas, Jemma's birthday, and all the assorted celebrations seem like the distant past, I'm loathe to do a holiday recap but know I'll regret it later if I don't. So.

Christmas Eve: For the first time in my life, I did not gather with my mom's side of the family for an evening of appetizers and plates and plates of little sugared treats. In the spirit of less is more and quality over quantity that we tried to embrace this holiday season, we made Christmas Eve about our own little family of four instead. We went to church at 5:00 p.m. for the family service (in years previous, we have never, ever attended church on Christmas Eve or on Christmas because of various family obligations) and it felt sweet and right to be singing O Holy Night on that very special night.

On our way home, we took time to drive up and down the streets in our area that deck out the curbs with luminaries every Christmas Eve. At home, we began a new tradition of Christmas Eve fondue dinner by candlelight. We had sparkling grape juice for the girls, and while we took turns spearing tart green apples and sourdough bread cubes to dip in the hot cheese, we also took turns toasting each other, our not-present family members, and our favorite places and things and events of the year. I may have cried a little.

Cookies and milk set out for Santa and girls tucked in beds, Jason and I filled stockings and talked about where we'd been and what we'd done for the last fifteen Christmasses we've been together, then went to sleep knowing the house was fully prepped for a morning of chaos and cheer.

Christmas Day:  I've written before about how all our Christmas mornings (and seasons) are bound to blend together in my mind, so every year I try to single out a few memorable details. This was the Christmas, then, when

• the green grass predominated over snow, much to the girls' dismay.
• the girls and I led Jason on a scavenger hunt to find his new skis.
• the furnace quit at some point during our present-opening frenzy and we spent lunch squeezed together at a little table we'd pulled to stand in front of the fireplace and spent the night with space heaters and air mattresses until the repairman could come the next morning, when the majority of the house was 53 degrees.
• Santa brought Annie an iPod touch (onto which she immediately loaded an awesome-in-its-randomness mix of The Beatles, Toto, Justin Bieber, Abba, Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, and Brandi Carlile) and Jemma a pink Razor scooter which she scooted up and down the hallway.
• we spent the afternoon with my family at my parents' house opening presents, playing fun games, and eating dinner with my grandparents.
• I snuck in a run around the lake with a friend and Jason got out on his bike on Christmas Eve in the sunshine.
• Annie and I made marshmallows for the first time together and Jemma destroyed the kitchen rolling them in powdered sugar.

Two days later, Jemma turned five. Five. Five is huge, big-kid, momentous (for me) and I can literally not believe she's five years old. We woke her up with balloons and YET MORE presents, celebrated with a Sugarplum Fairy dance party with eight of her friends in the afternoon, and had Smitten Kitchen double chocolate layer cake, homemade macaroni and cheese, and raspberries for dinner. We measured her, and sure enough, she's half an inch taller than she was just six months ago.

We've filled the holiday break with a trip up north, ice-skating downtown after dinner out, a million art projects, a night of cozy fun with friends and neighbors, a couple hours of burning energy at the gymnastics place, swimming at the pool, hours of Lego-building, an epic trip to the library, playing checkers and tic-tac-toe on the iPad, a lot of television and a lot of bickering. Just now, I'm hunkered in a coffee shop, post-yoga, trying to snatch a few minutes of quiet before I take the girls roller-skating this afternoon. I'm trying to gather my thoughts about this year that's almost over, figure out what 2012 is going to be about for me and for our family, and capture the texture of this exact time in our life. 

Birthday letter to Jemma and bunches of Christmas photos to come, but for now I'm just sweaty, tired, a little hungover, and trying my best to get the details of the last week down before they're gone.

(Almost) Ten Years Later

We're coming up on the ten year anniversary of 9/11 and I've seen some writing here and there about it this week - reflections, analysis, the kinds of "I remember where I was" stories that I always thought would only belong to the generation who remembered the assassination of JFK.  (I have also seen some hideous, tacky, "commemorative" t-shirts and what I suppose is meant to be "collectible" gear at Michael's, of all places, and all I could do was groan inwardly and think, Seinfeld-esque, Oh, we're doing this, now?)

Anyway.  I remember where I was.  It was my birthday.  I was at school, teaching second grade.  I lined my kids up, eighteen of them, on the steps outside my classroom and marched them down the many hallways and stairs in the beautiful historic building to their music class, where they got out their recorders and sat obediently on risers before the teacher began.  Then I marched myself back up the many hallways and stairs, probably wearing one of the three pairs of Dansko clogs I wore pretty much every day, and when I walked past Debbie's classroom, it was empty (her kids were probably at art or theatre) and she stood still in the middle of it, staring at the television where the tower was coming down.

The rest of the day was a blur.  We tried to keep the kids from knowing that anything was amiss.  We left our lunch tables to sneak into a classroom and watch the news.  We cried and tried to hide it.  We fielded phone calls and emails from frantic parents, some of whom showed up in the classroom to take their kids home.  We had an emergency staff meeting the moment the last child had gone home at the end of the day, our head of school unable to speak without his voice cracking and the school psychologist prepping us on what to say and do when the kids returned:  what to tell them, how much to say, how many details to include, what to watch for.

What I had then - ten years ago - was a classroom full of second-graders.  What I have now is a second-grader right here in my house, asleep in her bed even now as the sky turns gold and I sit on the front stoop typing.  When I read these 9/11 memoirs and remembrances, I can't help but think how much has changed for me in those intervening ten years.  As surreal as those horrible and uncertain days seem in retrospect, it is even more surreal to me that the me who did not even think to hope yet for children of my own in 2001 would have two little girls ten years later, and would live in a completely unknown house in a completely different city.  I would have a baby on my birthday, on the anniversary of the event.

In the aftermath of the attacks, I remember hearing the sentiment that this was a world (so dark, so evil) into which it might be foolish to bring children.  I never agreed with that.  I remember thinking that there was nothing new under the sun, that there would always be darkness and death and heartbreak but also love and triumph and goodness.  It was never a question of bringing them into the world, but now that they are here, it is a question of how to tell them about the darkness.  It is a question of how to explain the death.  It is a question of how much to shield them from the heartbreak.  It is a question of how to raise them to love, triumph, and contribute to the good.

*****

Jason's uncle passed away early this morning.  I have written before about how relatively untouched our lives have been by tragedy and loss, and even this loss is not really ours.  We are deeply sad, of course, because it is always sad to lose someone who you love and whom you have known for such a long time, but the loss really belongs to Jason's aunt and his cousins, to his uncle's mother and his uncle's many siblings and friends and sisters-in-law and neighbors who saw him regularly.  Which is why I was surprised to find myself tearing up this morning when Jason mouthed the news to me while he was still on the phone with his dad and again tonight at dinner when I explained his death to the girls.  They got quiet over their chicken rice soup.  We've talked all along about how sick he had been and about the battle he'd been fighting and especially lately about how sad Mimi and his family was, but I am not sure we had explicitly told them how it was going to end, once we both knew.  I explained that Jason and I would be going to the funeral and asked them if they had any questions.

"What time was it when he died?" Annie asked.

"I think it was really early in the morning, almost the middle of the night," I said.  I tried to say another sentence about how the nurses gave him special medicine so he wouldn't hurt and how his family was all around him but I had to stop and sit there, my eyes filling with tears.

"So, his heart just stopped working, then?" Annie continued.

I nodded and shrugged, not even totally sure what to tell her, or how much detail to give.

Jemma piped up.  "When people are really, really, really, really, really, really old, they die."

I nodded again.  "Yep, everybody eventually dies."

"Except for God.  And Jesus.  But they're the same person so, huh.  And Mary already died, but she had Jesus, so she had the magic tummy, right?"  Jemma's big eyes looked into mine and I smiled.  This is what people talk about, I thought, when they talk about the wisdom of babes.

Tonight I am remembering a man who took us out to dinner in Ann Arbor when we were much younger and poorer; a man who came to our first house in South Haven and demolished the old rickety deck before helping us build a new one; the man who loved to be outdoors and bonded with Jason over good food and drink; the man who will not get to see his grandchildren, with their big eyes and their many questions and their little hearts that moms everywhere draw and re-draw a slippery line around every day, trying to both shield them from the darkness while also teaching them how to live among it and be the light, shocked anew that the children they used to teach so confidently have been replaced with the ones who have so much to teach them.

Good Things, August 2011

Summer has almost lost its luster for me, frankly.  Siblings are fighting (we're going on week four of no scheduled activities, and it's a bit much), friends and family are struggling, time is short but to-do lists are long, and when I noticed it was the last day of August and I hadn't done this month's traditional Good Things post, I didn't much feel like doing it, anyway.  But going on the theory that it's during challenging  times that we need to search out the good things the most, I forced myself to scroll back through this month's photos, prompting the obvious realization that even in the midst of this - in the midst of anything, really - there are always, always good things.  

(I'm not saying there won't be a more, shall we say, realistic post tomorrow or the next day.)  

So, for now:

Fancy hair after Fairy Camp.  (Yes, Fairy Camp is an actual Thing.)

Jemma wearing her fairy crown at the last day's tea.

Ruth Reichl's peach cobbler.

Finding teency, tiny toads at Mimi's . . .

 . . . and learning about habitat, predator/prey relationships, and disappointment when setting them free.

A cozy dinner with just my big girl one night.

This expression on Annie's face while playing math games.

Jemma wearing my bath robe in the middle of the summer for no reason.

An impossibly gorgeous day at the beach.

Sisters at the annual block party . . .

 . . . and best friends being silly in front of the fire truck . . .

 . . . and some of the neighborhood gang posing for the yearly photo.

Daily piano practice, tutu optional.

Dancing along to sister's music.

Watching the band practice on the football field.

Post-sprinkler peek-a-boo.

Matching towels.

Annie's creation of bathing suits for her bears, made out of (you guessed it) her bathing suit.

Spending a day where this river meets the lake.

Playing Ms. Pac Man at Art's Tavern.

Sun-kissed girl drinking root beer.

This spectacular stretch of Lake Michigan beach (Sturgeon Bay at Wilderness State Park).

Cousins smashed together in a carved-wood chair at Leg's Inn,

drinking Shirley Temples on the lawn that overlooks the lake,

(or maybe chocolate milk),

linking arms walking back to the car,

and - miracle of miracles! - all four of them looking at the camera at once!

The Number One Rule

My parents were over for dinner one night last week.  In the course of conversation about another family member, my mom remarked, "I mean, the number one rule of being a (her maiden name) is Take Care of Your Stuff!"

The minute she said it, it struck me that Take Care of Your Stuff really is the number one rule for that side of my family.  I have never, ever, ever been to my grandparents' house and not seen every single item in its place.  The lawn is always mowed, the bushes trimmed, the garden weeded and watered, the carpets vacuumed, the cars washed and waxed, the tools hanging in their proper places in the garage, the counters wiped clean, the mail sorted on the phone desk.  The same thing is true at my parents' house, and at the houses of my aunts and uncles and extended family.

The same thing is not true here.  I mean, we don't totally neglect our stuff, and there does come a point where the stuff does get taken care of, but it is not rule number one.  It's probably not even rule number two or rule number thirteen.  It's probably rule number thirty or so, and that's okay with me.  We've actually tried not to accumulate too much stuff, because stuff needs to be cleaned and stored and waxed and vacuumed and sorted and wiped clean and watered and trimmed, and I don't get pride or joy from doing those things.  I do them when they must be done, and I try to do them thoroughly, and I am for good-enough stuff-care.  My family is possibly disappointed in me.

I've been thinking, though, about the unwritten rules we learn from our families, and about which rules we're following in our own home.  Beyond the (failed) attempt to teach me to take care of stuff, my family of origin also had other unspoken rules I can see if I look:

• Things - decisions, money, voting - are private.
• Save your money.
• When children grow up, their life is theirs to live.
• Give the best of what you make away to others.
• Be humble.
• Work first, then play.
• Everything in moderation.
• Follow the rules.

Then I had some fun thinking about the unspoken rules that Jason received from his extended family:

• Things  - decisions, money, voting - are public and to be discussed.
• Spend your money.
• When children grow up, you still have influence over their lives.
• Celebrate big.
• Be proud of your family and tell everyone.
• Follow traditions.
• Play more.
• Bend the rules.

I don't want to make it look like Jason and I grew up in polar opposite families, because we didn't:  lots and lots of the rules we lived by are the same, and we were raised in many of the same ways.  But it's fun and funny to look at how some of the messages we received were different, and it actually illuminates the few areas that can create conflict for us in our marriage. 

Now I'm thinking about what an outside observer would guess our little family's Rule Number One is.  I'm thinking, really, about what I would say it is, and I'm not sure.  I thought about it while I was running the lake last night, and while I was driving home from spending the day with my mom, and while I was painting trim in the living room on Friday night.  

Jason and the girls went up north for the weekend to fish with grandpa and dance polkas at The Polish Festival, and I like the distance that a little break gives me from our family of four.  I'm able to see it more clearly from the outside, put it under glass and walk around it for a day or two, making notes, examining.  I'm whipping out the calendar and planning our next few months, hunting down back-to-school supplies and clothes, dreaming up a few last summer adventures, and thinking about the unspoken rules I'm laying out for my family.  I'm thinking about what I want Fall 2011 to be about for us.  I'm reading this poster that hangs in my kitchen while I do the dishes and wondering:  what's your Rule Number One?

Memorial Weekend

Sounded like:  Little girls shrieking, boats on the lake, soft rain on the roof overnight, guitar, babbling brook, Billy Joel in the car.

Smelled like:  woodsmoke, apple blossoms, sunscreen, chocolate.

Felt like:  bubble baths, running with gravel underfoot, pages turning, buttery corn cobs, holding hands.

Tasted like:  ribs, goat cheese, Arnold Palmers, cold beer, ice cream.

Looked like: