war story

 

Tom & I sat out on the porch with a bottle of wine last night & told old stories. In the tradition of porch stories, a good one gets better the more it's told.

So here we go...

the year is 1970.

The powers that be are sending young men to fight an old mens' war, At this time ,it was in Viet Nam. things haven't changed too much since then.

My future husband is 18.

He is sitting with his mom, watching the draft lottery on tv & wondering if his entire future will be changed at that moment. (for those of you who aren't familiar, at that time there was a lottery to pick those who would be drafted into the military. They drew the birthdates of all 18 yr old men on live tv and  your number depended on when & if you would get a notice in the mail from Uncle Sam that began chillingly with "Greetings...")

Tom's mom was incensed. "well,it doesnt' matter what your number is,"she sputtered. "I've done my part! They sent one of my sons over there and shot him! He still wakes up screaming! You are just not going! I'll write you a note!"

Well, Tom still says he won the lottery

. He got a high number, but I treasure the thought of him showing up at the local draft board with a note reading"please excuse my son from this war..."

 

It is a stormy day & I love it. If it's pretty, I feel like I must be out & about,but Caitlin & Tom are napping & Mariah is gone for the weekind....

I'm guilt-free.

I have a note?

my interview

i was so excited to see that Rebecca, who has the wonderful journal In the shadow of the Iris, wants to interview me. The great thing about journaling is we get to feel famous!

Let me begin with a disclaimer...I am home from work with a toothache, waiting for my dentist appointment and have been up all night. I hope I dont' embarrass myself! Don't feel too much sympathy for me,though. I am really anesthesized on pain pills! 

 
In The Shadow Of The Iris
Interview
Comment from: sunnyside46
"oh, I wanna play!
Marti"

Marti,     I'm so glad you decided to play along. I think this is a great way to get to know even more about people. So pull up a chair, imagine the green hue of an interview room, pretend I'm Barbara Walters and here we go.............<and please make sure and email me when your done so I can get over to your journal right away and see your answers> Have fun! Rebecca  

 

   1) A publisher has just handed you a million dollar advance to write a book. What direction would you go? Fiction, nonfiction, love story, mystery, sci-fi, chick lit, adventure, poetry, ok this list could go on and on.......... your sitting at your computer, blank page staring bold and white at you, what would you write to earn your million dollars?

 

 I think I would write a book pretty much like my journal. I love the tradition of telling stories on a porch late at night.That is the vibe I'm after here.

 

  2) You have 5 Mothers, of soon to be teenagers, all waiting patiently for your wisdom and advice. <Ok this includes me> What would you pass down to us to help us through these years of having teenage children? Advice, suggestions, wisdom, padded suits, HELP US. As the mother of a 23 year old daughter, that makes you a professional!!

 

 The best thing you can do for your daughters is to arrange life where you can say yes more than you have to say no.What I mean is, make sure you have lots of fun things you want them to do to take up their time so they have less opportunity to do things you'd rather not know about!

 The smartest thing I ever did was become a Girl Scout Leader. I started when my youngest daughter was in kindergarten & I became close with all her friends. Through Scouts, the same girls have stayed close through middle school & I know her peers & their parents. You get real close when you've spent nights lying in a tent listening to the rain for several trips! We have tihngs in common because we spent time together.

my girls always had to have a hobby.It didn't matter what ,but they had to have something going on.This gives them confidence & a concept of themselves as competent

. Don't sweat the small stuff. I wasn't thrilled with Mariah's pink hair, but I hellped her dye it & it became a memory to laugh over.

Be the house where all the kids hang out. You may have a mess to clean up, but you'll know where your kids are!

Enjoy your kids! I dont' know why people are thrilled when babies learn to walk & talk, then suddenly want them to stop growing when it comes time for driver's licenses & dates!

 Remember, even if they are going through a phase, if you have been close, you will be again. Just step back & breatheBe there when they come back

Tell them you will ALWAYS come & get them with no questions asked. My 23 yr old remembers this more fondly than anything I've ever told her.

Find something to like about their friends.Dont' make them choose between you,at this age, you'll lose.Discuss differences on a philosophical , rather than personal level.

 The best friend you'll ever have is your daughter!

     3) What do you want to do when you grow up? Ok, thats a silly question, but really, tell us something you're still dying to accomplish, a dream that is just at your fingertips, a quest still to be had...

.......Oh, wow...I want to be a park ranger, but then I would have to work during the summer!it would be cool to be a heavy equipment driver,too!

 4) They always say you get once chance to make a first impression. When people meet you, what kind of impression do you think they walk away with about you?

 It's important to me to be thought of as cheerful.

Life is too short to waste any of it .I try to think that every thing I do , I am trading a moment of my life for it & I want to make sure it's worth the deal.

I think I give the impression of being a ditz, which is not really true. It's just that I dont' feel you have to be stressed to be competent..

  5) I really liked this question Carly had asked in my interview so you get it too. If you were commissioned to create a painting that would best represent your life as a whole, what would it look like, what colors would it be, and to which museum would you allow to display it?

 hmmm, I would like it displayed in a children's museum.I would like to be painted in a field with my arms over my head , twirling....

 

so, if you want to be interviewd, leave me a comment & off we go!

silver whites

I am reading some kids' essays & just had to stop and share this one...

"Dr. Martin Luther King was a great silver white leader"

huh?

It became clear as I read on...

 

"He wanted every one to have their silver whites"

This particular child has a lisp and writes just like he talks.

Is that not precious?

 

wordpictures

favorite pictures I carry in my mind to warm my hands over on cold days....Megan , my girl Scout since kindegarten,saying"my life would be so different if I didn't know you"while my nephew played guitar & the crickets tried tooutdo him

 

my lanky,perpetually snotty Caitlin, leaning on me. Some people have marks on doorjams to tell how tall their kids are. I keep track of Caitlin's growth by the snot marks on my clothes.

 

purple wildflowers like exclamation points in the woods

 

sleeping with the smell of a fire, waking with burn holes in my shirt (I was cold!)

 

I am so lucky in this life....

What a great weekend we had! Friday night, Ava & Megan & Stormy came to visit. They are Girl Scouts form my troop. We have been together since they were in kindergarten. We have spent many nights huddled up in tents telling stories to keep theboogey man away.Now that they have become teenagers I am so much a part of their lives that they forget I am part of the grownup world. Somehow because of our long association, I am exempt from the bored tolerance they extend to most adults.I feel much more akin to them than I do to a lot of people my age. They,like me , are still excited about the world.
I had planned on taking them to the beach on Saturday, but my BIL & SIL were going camping,so I talked them into going along. (I explained to them once that since they were older, they would be responsible for the meetings, money, etc & one of them said,"well, what is your function?"I am the one with a driver's license!)
Tom went up Friday night, but we waited for Ava & played poker for pennies.
We got up early Saturday morning to go. The girls were packedfor a beach trip, so I threw all the blankets, jackets, pillows& shoes I could find into the trunk & off we went.
A word about David & Judy: They got married at 17 & 18.She was pregnant, the families were not pleased. They didnt'; have jobs.Three children later, he had a stroke. An accomplished musician, he can only strum his guitar now. A talented artist, he taught himself to draw with this left hand.They lost their house & all their possesions in Hurricane Ivan. They live on her pay she gets form running a booth at a tourist attraction selling homemade herbal remedies and his disability check.They are the happiest people I know.
They are very clsoe to their kids & gradkids, they get together & all sing & play some kind of musical instrument. They love in their family is so strong you can see it,an actual physical presence
So, the campers are Judy & David,their son Kelley, his girlfriend Cathy, his daughter Lily who is 2, me & my entourage, Tom & our nervous cocker spaniel , Penny.
After a long trip in the car filled with Blink 182 and shrill laughter,we arrived at Blakely.Of course we got lost, it si a huge park & the map is laughable.But what a beautiful spot to be lost in!Everything the new green of spring...sunlight sparkling on the trees, wild violets peeking out of the grass...
We hiked, ate, ran up & down hills, ate,played guitars, drank, laughed and basked in our love of each other.
I am so thankful for this family I have found. I wandered around looking for the place I belonged in my younger years. Through happy chance & careful cultivation, I have found my home.

best aunt ever

My sister in heart as well as in law is the best aunt ever.

 She is my age & has no biological children, but is stepmama to grown twin girls.

Every family should have one of these people...she knows everybody's birthday by heart (and in our family of 9 siblings, 39 grandkids & i forget how many great-grandkids,that is quite a feat) she comes & ASKS if she can babysit, seh brings toys whenever she comes to visit, the perfect aunt.

One day we were all sitting around & talk turned to what would happen to our kids if we met an untimely end"Why, we drew up papers with our lawyer, they go to Eileen"'"Really, we did too.How about you?"" well,we hadn't discussed it, but we just assumed Eileen would take them" 

The person to be honored by all this post mortem giving didn't say much about it until it was time to go. "Hell, no", she exclaimed (Eileen never curses) "All of you aren't riding in the same car!"

this week's issue of Sojourner

Dying and dignity

Health care these days isn't, for all but the elite strata of our society. It's not hard to conjure up a medical nightmare tale at the local coffee shop: Just start sharing your own recent woes at a hospital, and a host of voices will chirp in with their own experiences of neglect.

Lo and behold, I have a story to share of heroism that takes place in the health care world. A nursing friend of mine, Mary Ann, works in a Catholic hospital in San Francisco. She was on her regular evening shift last month when the police brought into the emergency room a John Doe whom they had found lying inert on a city street. This homeless man was barely conscious, and his body had entered into the final stages of toxicity and organ shut-down that precede death.

On this particular evening, not unlike most evenings at this urban San Francisco hospital, the nurses had a full slate of patients who needed attention. To Mary Ann's list was added John Doe.

Mary Ann soon realized that there would be no extraordinary medical intervention to rescue John Doe's life. Her task that evening, as she understood her nursing vocation, was to accompany her patient on his journey toward death. Mary Ann continued to make her rounds with all her patients early in the evening, and made regular stops at the bed of John Doe. She noted that the man whose name she would never come to know was aware of her presence, and responded to her words of comfort.

The other nurses on the ward that evening were moved by Mary Ann's spirit of compassion, and felt sympathy for a man dying alone, without apparent friend or family. To a person, the nurses spontaneously volunteered to add to their attendant list one of Mary Ann's patients so that she would be free to care solely for John Doe.

Mary Ann stayed by his bedside the rest of the evening. The man could not speak to her, but he applied pressure to Mary Ann's hand in response to her prayers, stories, and consolations. He remained alert until the last breath escaped from his lungs. Death came to take him at daybreak. Mary Ann uttered one final prayer of gratitude to God for walking this gentle soul home.

As Mary Ann shared this story with me, two immediate thoughts came to mind. First, it's tempting to overlook the legion of nurses, therapists, doctors, technicians, and other health care professionals who each and every day act in a way that I can only think of as heroic, or perhaps saintly. They, too, are pained by the economic system that pits revenue against care and cuts budgets along with dignity. There are individuals in the system who are trying to make a difference, and we need to honor them.

Second, as John Doe lay in his hospital bed dying, saved from a totally anonymous passing by a giving spirit, the nation was transfixed with Terry Schiavo. Americans, it seems, work out their social values through pop culture - race with O.J., gender with the Bobbits, and so on - so perhaps the 24/7 media coverage of every detail of the Schiavo family is not surprising. But it strikes me that Mary Ann, on watch at the bedside of John Doe, is the symbol for an expression of "the absolute dignity of human life" that I will carry with me.

 

 

this article impressed me as the story of someone who lives a reality most of us just like to discuss.