Parenting -- Not For Sissies

To choose to be parents is a brave thing to do in this modern age, even to be a single mother and choose to keep your baby, or to never marry and instead adopt four as a college friend of mine did. It's a field of land mines. Not for the faint of heart. No instructions are included, for this, the scariest of choices. A child never ceases to be our concern, even after they are grown and gone. One is determined not to repeat bad choices we think our parents made, and hope we can make them a better life than the one we had. We hope we gave them the tools they need for success.

Hurt people hurt people. I am the product of an emotionally distant mother. My own mother was told that she was unwanted--Baby #7 born in 1929. My parents did not have a good marriage. Neither did I. My mother had a different world view than most of her relatives, hence we were kept isolated from cousins and aunts and uncles because their values were not perceived to be the same as hers. My parents stayed together. I did not.

It took me years to learn that no man was better than a bad man. My church at the time emphatically insisted that the fault in the marriage was mostly mine and that I should comply with the rules against divorce and stay with my abuser. So I did, far longer than he deserved. When I did divorce, I became more vulnerable and attractive to men who were nothing more than parasites. Finally I became less willing to settle for misery and to break away from those toxic relationships and ways of thinking.

My siblings and I were victimized by organized religion. We were bullied in school and no one, not even parents stepped in to help us. It was like being a living martyr. After a time into adulthood when I was not compelled to attend church, I had to start all over again with what I knew to be true.

Today, I would refrain from labeling myself religious. Basically, I have dismissed most of organized religion and embrace spirituality rather than religiosity. I know what it means to have faith, to be forgiven, to experience healing, and the daily presence of God in my life. My relationship is not open to debate or criticism from others, it is my own business. I do not feel the need to proselytize or impose my own views on anyone.

My own children were launched into successful productive adulthood much sooner than I was. My parents' religion set me back several decades worth of doubt and low self esteem. Who can honestly say they had an ideal childhood? Who does not have some issues with one parent or both?

Who can say that because I am not the child of divorce that I am well-adjusted and at peace with my disfunctional past? The truth is, it's complicated. Hatred and holding a grudge are useless emotions. It has taken me decades to forgive myself for my trespasses.

Just One More Thing -- Remembrances

  A child of thirteen sits in a church pew with her family. She sees her aunts and uncles nearby. Many strangers with solemn faces fill the sanctuary. All of them have gathered at the funeral of an 80-year old man who had devoted his life in service to God and his fellow man. Some accounts later said the cortege spanned nearly a mile.
  I was that child who, in 1966, lost the only grandfather she ever knew. More concerned with cousins and playmates at that time than an elderly man, she lived her own life, mostly unaware of family connections and concerns. Many years later, one of my cousins recorded and shared her findings about our family. Thanks to the curiosity of Wanita Potts Lavens, the Finch family has discovered its place in history, and fueled the curiosity of some of its descendants. My second cousin Kenneth Finch has also made exhaustive research on the Finches. A million times thank you, my dear cousins. Remembering family visits and occasions, especially the "Finch Kids" reunions is less of an effort, although some memories still come to mind after all this time. Photo albums tell a happy story in black and white.
  I don't remember many specific interactions with either of my grandparents like those my Sister Diane has noted, although there was a general feeling of comfort and security present there in that house on Oakdale Road in Johnson City, NY. These were two people whose lives revolved around family meals and the comforts of home. Grandma took pride in two things: her gardens, and setting a bountiful table. She cultivated many indoor plants, among them an enormous Boston fern atop a plant stand pedestal of pale wood which, festooned with delicate feathery fronds, looked to me like magnificent green feathers coming out of the top. There were lacy doilies of filet crochet on the back of the couch and easy chairs, that would be rumpled from use, and were straightened again as if by reflex. Grandpa's paintings were on display on the walls and staircase railings, along with family photographs.
  At every summer gathering, the table groaned with steaming ears of sweet corn. Grandpa stood his ears of corn on end and cut the kernels off with a sharp knife. Uncle John took out his dentures at table and licked them clean of kernels, to the exasperation of his mother and the entertainment of young family. Jellies and relishes in fancy little cut glass dishes were passed, along with bowls of mashed potatoes and gravy, with green beans and sweet peas from the garden, with platters of roast meats.
  We walked down the road to visit cousins unchaperoned and without fear to see what our cousins were doing. My favorite place to be was at aunt Jean and uncle Wesley's. There was always something exciting happening. My sister remembers one occasion that Donna was sassing her father while being chased around the kitchen table, trying to catch her for discipline. We were horrified that she was getting away with it! Uncle Wesley smoked a pipe that smelled like cherries, how I loved it! Jean always spoke to me like a grownup, not a child, not to discipline me like my mother, but conversational. Her house was my particular favorite place to be, with its shady lawn and trees.
  Uncle Stan and aunt Neva lived across the road and sometimes on my rounds I would drop in on them as well! They had a fluffy yapping little Pomeranian dog named Goldie that I never could get close enough to pet. The living room was very luxurious to my memory, and formal, and I seem to remember pale blue silk drapery.
  There wasn't much physical affection from either grandparent that I remember. No pony rides on knees, cuddling in laps or stories read or anything like that. They were both regal and remote for the most part, very English. Grandma loved her teatime. I longed to participate. With a large family, there was so much work to be done in meal preparation and cleanup, mostly the adults talked among themselves while the children were left to occupy themselves without much hovering.
  Despite all this, I remember an overwhelming sense of pride as I sat in the congregation at one of Grandpa's last sermons before he retired. Years later, I learned that he had started the Pilgrim News himself, writing scholarly articles of interest and about local church events, that is still published today. When I discovered he had given up his teaching career at Cornell University for a meagre minister's salary, many many times having to make ends meet and feed his family with what was in the Sunday morning collection plate, I thought about the sacrifice that was made to address the spiritual needs of others, and how he was truly a man set apart.
  Now that I'm a grownup, I wish I had known him better. I have lots of questions about why he chose the path he did, the strength of will and his determination that held him on steady course all his life, his passion for his art and his birds, how he learned to build houses and churches, and about his own father and grandfather and siblings. But most of all, I wish to know how to emulate his devotion to goodness and high moral standards, and to always focus on the eternal instead of the temporal. He lived by the motto "Only one life, will soon be past. Only what's done for Christ will last".

-----with love, Grandma & Grandpa, your granddaughter, Patty Bush-----

A Diversion - My Maternal Grandmother, some Musings

The following is a narrative authored by my sister Diane entitled "Memories of my Grandmother Neva Phillips Finch and Grandfather Frances T. Finch

  Grandma was a tall woman who had a round, protuberant stomach, and flat chest, dentures and glasses. She loved to cook and I used to spend hours sitting next to her on a special stool, watching her deftly cut up apples when she was baking apple pie.
  She was known far and wide for her amazing relishes. She used to send me down to the cellar to pick out a few jars of summer produce she had put up the previous season. Beautifully colored contents in jars--rows and rows of them. But her real love was gardening. I learned many flowers and their names from the time I spent with her--petunias, different varieties of roses, morning glories and marigolds, among others.
  She cherished the kitschy stuff she and Grandpa picked up from their travels on vacations to Florida, dust catchers on display, encrusted with little tiny shells and sparkles and the word "Florida" inscribed in curly script. Their bedroom was all hers--purple and fluffy, with a fluffy rug on the floor and matching everything. It smelled like perfume and I used to sneak in there and inhale whenever possible.
  On the back porch was a wooden swing suspended from the underside of the ceiling. I spent a lot of time there reading and swinging. Sleeping arrangements for our family were all upstairs in one room, hung with filmy white curtains at the windows that flapped gently in the breeze. Hard to sleep on such a lumpy mattress next to my sister.
  I remember waking up to the sound of many roosters crowing from various neighbors, when it was still dark outside. Wishing I could shut them up and sleep. The drone of distant planes.
  I remember some amazing meals, with the table groaning even with a leaf or two added, especially those Sunday dinners. I ate until I felt slightly sick. Grandma believed in big breakfasts with lots of protein. I used to watch her and Grandpa use tiny saccharine pills from a tiny bottle to sweeten their coffee.
  Grandma's laugh was unlike any I have ever heard, a dry rusty sort of laugh, passed down to all her female blood relatives (as I discovered later at a family gathering). Grandma used to keep stacks of old magazines under the bed in the spare room, some of which had paper dolls in them along with their clothes, which I was allowed to cut out and play with.
  I used to skip down the road and visit cousins, Karen primarily. She had Barbies! Donna was not around much. Cheryl was older than I and had other interests so we didn't interact much as friends. There were a couple of ponds up the hill on the property, and I used to go up there and catch frogs and listen to them plop in alarm to safety, or even to sing. There were also wild blueberries that I ate my fill of when they were in season.
 Grandpa kept ornamental pigeons and other fowl in a shed next to the house and I would go inside and watch all of them go into a tizzy, flapping and squeaking in alarm. Tried to make friends without success.
  The front porch had an old screen door that made a sort of sproinging noise when you opened it into a sort of mudroom where Grandma kept all her gardening pots and tools. It always smelled good.
  I was scared to go into the cellar because the stairs were so tall and steep and had no backs, just empty spaces. Took me a long time to conquer my fear. I also remember playing inside on the stairs leading up to the second story, peering through the railings at the grownups below and eavesdropping on their conversations.
  Grandpa painted primitive scenes of American Indians in their natural surroundings in the woods, on horseback, etc. One wall in the living room was covered with them. Grandpa used to scare me a little because he had such piercing icy blue eyes. I felt he could see into my soul, so I tried my very best to be an angel while there. Grandpa also had acid reflux disease and suffered terribly with it after every meal. No wonder he was so skinny in later years. He walked with a cane. Wore glasses.
  Grandma was very skilled with a crochet needle, using the smallest  needle and the thinnest thread to turn out crocheted masterpieces, some big enough for a tablecloth. Always busy with her hands. She was the first person who taught me how to shell peas and shuck corn. Eating plenty of those raw peas as I went along, of course! Wild strawberries grew in the grass above the house and I made a beeline for those, let me tell you! That's when strawberries really tasted like strawberries. She fed the birds and put the bird feeders right outside the house on the patio in front of the big picture window in the dining area so she could watch them all day long.
  Grandma would always remark how much I had grown since the last time she had seen me. She would put her hand under my chin and look at me. Many times I got carsick on the journey to see them. My mother took a picture of me in the early 60's, standing stiff as a ramrod by the bird bath on the side of the hill. I remember her taking it, and trying to make myself look taller for the picture.
  Grandma put her hair up and used white bobby pins and a white hairnet. I never saw her with her hair down, but knew she had very long hair. She always wore an apron, sometimes just around the waist, sometimes all the way up and tied around the neck. Always pretty and feminine and interesting. Her clothes I remember as being pretty severe and boring.
  I remember Grandpa reading a lot. Always religious material, mostly the Bible. I remember him praying for me and surreptitiously crying because I wanted to be so good and felt I fell so far short.
  Steep gravel driveway around the side of the house and then leveling off and curving and coming to a stop right in front of the doorstep. Always excited to see them, and in later years, Grandma only. I can walk through every room in my mind and tell you all the furniture that was in that house, and where it was placed. I can tell you about the favored chairs for sitting and what they looked like and where they were placed in the living room. I can tell you about the carpet on the floor, and the linoleum in the kitchen. Treasure trove of candy upstairs in Uncle John's room--when he was home, sometimes he shared some.
  Grandma put up with too much in Uncle John, who was mentally ill and much stronger than she. He called her "Big Mama" and swatted her behind, which she hated. He spent a lot of time sleeping on the couch. After she had her series of strokes and was bedridden, in order to communicate, she wrote names of relatives on a piece of paper, and pointed to them--very smart.
  My last memory is sad--she was unable to be cared for anymore in her home, and the paramedics were at the door to take her away. She didn't want to go, was crying, couldn't talk. She was on the stretcher. Every room she was carried through she grabbed the side of the doorway with her hands. They pried her hands off. Then they would go through another doorway and it was repeated. She knew she was never coming back. It was heartbreaking and every affecting to me as a child, to see a grownup so helpless and unable to fulfill her wish to die in her own home.
  Overall, those were innocent times, and I look back on them in fond memory, nostalgia and love. I am writing these things down for you, my dear family, so you can know a little bit about them as real people, not just names on your family tree.

  ----Diane Bush Bradbury, October, 2013------