The Women On My Walk #1 - My Daughter

There are so many wonderful women who make up Grams' support system that deciding where to start has been more of a challenge than I expected.  So maybe it's a little obvious, but I've decided to start with the person who has been the number one most influential woman in my life for 30 years now, my daughter, Katy. 

Where to start and what can I say?  I'll start by saying that Katy is the most supportive person I know, bar none.  And she doesn't support and encourage only me, it is innate in her personality.  She's encouraging, upbeat, and uplifting to everyone, family, friends and coworkers.  Friends and family members have often commented to me about how just spending time with her raises their spirits. She's beautiful inside and out.

It was clear to me very early that her vision is different from mine.  And I mean that literally.  She has an artist's eye and she was born with it.  When I look at something, I see the thing.  When she looks at the same thing, she sees what it is made of ... the lines, the textures, the curves, and the shadows. And she has the talent and skill to translate what she sees into something beautiful and artistic. 

When I need it, she's not shy about giving me a good healthy dose of reality.  When I was investigating gastric bypass surgery in a desperate effort to regain control of my weight and my health, she went with me to visit the surgeon.  She listened to what he had to say and asked lots of questions.  She was straightforward and honest about her expectations.  She turned to me and said, "Mom, I'm willing to support you in this, but you have to do what the doctor says.  You can't do this for a while and then stop.  This will be for the rest of your life."  So there it was, not said out loud but powerful even though unspoken.  Without being unkind or mean-spirited, she'd just made her point.  What she didn't say is "Mom, you've been on every kind of diet there is, but you've never stuck to any of them long term."  But her point was made and it's stuck with me.  Every time I get discouraged or think I can't do it any more, I remember the commitment she asked of me and that I made to her, simply this, that I will do what the doctor says.  And the few times I've strayed off plan, she doesn't hesitate to remind me of my commitment. 

The morning my Mom died, I called Katy and she immediately offered to come home.  We already knew that the funeral would not be here in Corpus Christi, but 500 miles away in Northeast Texas.  We also knew that Grandad would be having major surgery within the next few days so I told her just to wait until the arrangements were made and then we would decide in a day or so who would go to the funeral and who would come home for the surgery.  But as the day passed and I faced the reality of coming home alone to an empty house, around five o'clock I realized that I didn't want to be alone.  I called her and she was here within three hours.  It was such a comfort not to have to face that night alone.

When I wanted to climb Enchanted Rock, she was the very first to volunteer to go with me.  When I struggled that day, both physically and emotionally, she stayed right by my side encouraging me and truly understanding why this was an emotional thing for me. 

We have a very strong mother-daughter connection that I did not have with my own Mom.  But, it's more than that.  There's even a psychic connection.  Both of us just know when the other is in need.  Simply put, she's my best friend.  Rarely does a day go by that we don't talk on the phone.  When I need advice, she's the one I can always turn to.  She's level-headed and truly wise beyond her years.  She makes good decisions about her own life.  She lives her life consciously.  She's environmentally and politically responsible.  And I am proud of the woman she is.

Our relationship has not always been sunshine and roses.  After all, she was a teenage girl for six or seven years.  And don't even get me started on some of the young men she chose to date.  But when it came to choosing a life partner, she chose wisely.  She has a wonderful husband and they are building a great life together.  We still don't always see eye-to-eye on everything, but we love and respect each other.  Over the years we have successfully redefined our relationship to keep it suitable to our ages and where we are in our lives.  And, she's the mother of Our Little Princess.  What more could I ask for?

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Church

Grams and Grandad are in Houston this weekend dog-sitting for our Grand-dogs while Nick and Marie are in San Antonio. They live in northeast Houston, very close to Humble.  We decided that we would drive over to Kingwood for mass this Mother's Day at St. Martha's Catholic Church.  We had driven past it before and thought it would be nice.  We didn't remember exactly where it was so I "googled" the address, punched it into my Tom-Tom, and headed for church.  As usual, we were running on a very tight schedule.

We hurried the ten or so miles following the directions step by step.  As we made the last turn onto Woodland Hills Drive, there was a huge church on our right.  I thought to myself that the church was bigger than I remembered.  We turned into the driveway, ready to rush in just in time for the service to start.  The parking lot was full and there were cars parked along the side of the road.  We noticed a big sign in the parking lot that said "Free Valet Parking."  I must admit that I found that a little odd.  But again to myself, I thought that, given how crowded it seemed, valet parking was a great idea.  We were greeted by two very friendly "parishioners" who were dressed in khakis and golf shirts.  One of them drove off to park our car while to other one pointed us towards the "sanctuary."

As we turned to head towards the church I saw it ... a small sign that said "Welcome to Kingwood Baptist Church."

I quietly tugged on Grandad's arm, he leaned over and I whispered in his ear, "This is a Baptist church." The look of shock on his face was priceless.  He turned to the one remaining valet attendant and explained to him that we were at the wrong church.  I stood by quietly beginning to laugh.  The attendant jumped into a handy golf cart and chased down our car.  They were very gracious and invited us to stay for services at their church even suggesting that we could be "Southern Baptist for the day."  I jokingly told them that I was raised Southern Baptist, but I used to tell my Mother that I overcame it.  They didn't laugh.

As soon as we got in the car, I started laughing maniacally.  I got a huge kick out of almost getting Grandad into the Baptist Church for the day.  He didn't think it was as funny as I did, although he did seem mildly amused.

We made it to St. Martha's just in time for the opening hymn.  It was a special treat, because it was first communion Sunday at St. Martha's.  There is nothing sweeter than second graders dressed up for their first communion.  I'm happy to report that St. Martha's was just as crowded and just as friendly as Kingwood Baptist seemed.  The service was a lovely celebration of first communion and Mother's Day.  They have a fabulous choir, friendly people, an entertaining and interesting priest.   I really enjoyed being there.

However, I can't help but think that my Mother (God rest her soul) had a hand in guiding us to Kingwood Baptist Church for Mother's Day.  Some people never give up!

Happily Ever After

The upcoming Mothers Day weekend makes me think about the kind of home I grew up in.  In large part, the kind of mother I became is a direct result of where I came from.  With a few exceptions, I doubt that even people who have known me since I was a teenager know very much about my family life.  I have never been good at sustaining long-term friendships and I think that's a product of my raising. 

Generally speaking, my parents had issues.  They fought like cats and dogs, they were verbally abusive and sometimes they were physically violent, both with each other and sometimes towards us kids.  It was more than just spanking; sometimes it was fists and belts.  Two of my five siblings are what's now referred to as "special needs." I would say that definitely added to their stress and undoubtedly to their expenses. 

They were never fiscally responsible.  It was not unusual for our cars or our furniture to be repossessed.  My parents never owned a home of their own.  We either lived with relatives or we lived in rent houses.  We moved frequently, because they didn't pay the rent and would be evicted.  (I'll note right here that I went to seven or eight different elementary schools.  My sister and I once made a list of all the houses we lived in that we could remember, the total was more than fifteen.)

We once spent an entire summer with no electricity and no running water.  Our neighbors allowed us to run a water hose for drinking water and for flushing the toilets.  Most of the time we didn't have a telephone. When we did have a phone, bill collectors called frequently.  Disconnected utilities were the norm for us. 

My Dad was an automotive mechanic.  He worked hard all his life.  He was a civilian employee of the federal government, first for the Army, later for the Navy.  Several times he was transferred, laid off and/or fired.  He had "anger issues."  I once saw him pull a shotgun on an electric company employee who was sent to disconnect our service and I know that at least once he was suspended for threatening a fellow employee.  I know now that my Dad had a condition that I'm pretty sure would be diagnosed as "intermittent explosive disorder."  One of my sisters has the same disorder.  Now it can be controlled with medication. 

Mom was a stay-at-home mom.  From time-to-time she did such things as sell Tupperware or cosmetics.  She battled severe depression and bi-polar disorder her entire life.  When she was in one of her low periods she would not get out of bed for days and more than once she threatened to kill herself.  Those times were hard to endure and the impact they had on me was deep and long-lasting.

They did not expect nor encourage us to attend college.  Several of us had opportunities for higher education, but our parents told us they would not help us and, if we did go, we would be on our own.  We were expected to go to work and to contribute significant amounts of our income to the household, and we did.  (To his eternal credit, my brother Charlie went to night school and eventually earned a bachelor's degree.)  We were all told that once we left home we could never move back home.  

As adults, my siblings and I have discussed in great depth why my parents were the way they were and why they couldn't or didn't pay their bills.  They didn't drink, gamble or live extravagantly.  We just don't know what was going on with them and we never will.  As an adult, I've come to understand that they probably did the best they were capable of doing.  It's what I choose to believe and it helps me make peace with it all.  

Don't get me wrong.  I loved my parents and, considering all this, I had a pretty good childhood.  As a kid, I didn't know this behavior was abnormal or unusual.  I thought everyone lived this way, but mostly I didn't think about it at all. As a teenager, it was embarrassing and I came to hate the way we lived.  I always knew that, if I ever had kids, I would make sure they had a sane and stable home life. 

Before our children started school, we moved into the home where we still live.  Our utilities have never been disconnected and we pay our bills on time.  Both of my kids went to kindergarten and graduated high school with the same group of kids.  They both have friends that they've known their entire lives.  They were yelled at, disciplined, and even spanked, but never abused.  And we helped both of our kids go to and finish college.  From the time they started school, they were taught that their education would not be finished until they had earned at least a bachelor's degree.  College was mandatory, not optional.  They're both educated, employed, and happily married.

The mother I am is the result of the kind of home I grew up in.  The difficulties I endured did not define me, they made me work hard to be the best Mom I could be.  I am content and satisfied with the kind of mother I am.  We have always had a peaceful and loving home.  I have great relationships with both of my children and I love being both Mom and Grams. It was a long trip, but I made it to my happily ever after.

Mothers and Friends

I had lunch with two good friends and former co-workers today. I hadn't seen them in a couple of months and it was great to spend an hour visiting, swapping stories and laughing. All three of us are moms with children of varying ages. We have stayed in touch since leaving our common employer more than three years ago.

Our children range in age from 10 to 30 and among us we have 5 girls and 2 boys. But we always have the best time talking about them and sharing our motherhood stories.

Isabel has two extremely precocious daughters who are in elementary school. I love the stories she tells about them. They are both so smart. The things they say make me think that both of them are smarter than your average bear.

Today Isabel related that recently she was very angry and yelling at the younger of her girls. After a while, her daughter looked at her and said something like "Mommy, some of the people inside of you are ugly and I don't like seeing them."

Then the fun really started. We spent the next several minutes laughing uproariously while suggesting alternate names for Isabel's other personalities. My favorite was Carlotta and we laughingly suggested that next time she's angry she might remind her daughter that she doesn't want to see Carlotta.

Joanne went on to tell us about how her son recently went alligator hunting. A couple of weeks ago when she asked me if I had any recipes for alligator I thought she was joking. She reported that the alligator skin is being tanned so he can have boots made, although it may be a long time before he can afford the custom-made boots. And, since she now has an alligator head in her freezer, she has set aside a specific part of her freezer just for her son's wild game. That way not only does she not have to eat it, she doesn't even have to see it. Let's just say that her son is a major contributor to the gun ownership statistics in Texas.

We talked about how great it is when your kids finally get old enough and mature enough to stay by themselves for short periods of time. Isabel reported that her girls are now old enough that she occasionally leaves them for very short periods of time like to run to the pharmacy. I told her a cautionary tale of my two children dialing 9-1-1 because they thought our neighbor's house was being burglarized. It turned out that they were having their windows replaced and the people "breaking in" were the contractors. We all still laugh about that and my neighbor says they absolutely did the right thing.

I think the bottom line is that mothers don't have to keep a sense of humor ... but it helps. Mark Twain summed it up well.

"My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it." -Mark Twain

Happy Birthday, Mom

My mother, Annie Louise Chapman Skelton, would have been 86 years old today. She died two years ago of renal failure. Grams could go into a lot of details about my mother and her life, but I'm going to try to resist the urge to air my family's "dirty laundry." Suffice it to say that my mother's life was hard and our relationship was often strained. Some of her life's difficulties were beyond her control and many were the result of her own actions. I'll just leave it at that.

She was a stay-at-home mom with six kids, two of whom had severe handicaps. She raised us in an age before dishwashers, clothes dryers and air conditioners. She made us do chores and she took us to church. While our friends ran the neighborhood from dawn to dark, she made us stay inside during what she called the "heat of the day." And we were not allowed to play until our chores were done.

She always had to know where we were going and who our friends were. When we got older, we were never allowed to go "cruising" like our friends. Anytime we left the house we had to have a specific destination and you better know that she was going to call and make sure we were where we said we were going to be.

She made us go to bed on time and she woke us up early. The girls learned to sew and keep house. The boys mowed the lawn and raked leaves. She made sure that those of us who could got at least a high school diploma. The possibility of incurring the wrath of our mother kept us out of serious trouble. We all knew that if we got in trouble at school, we'd be in even more trouble when we got home.

And she spanked us ... often making us go out to the tree and cut our own switch. But the tree was not necessary, we were often spanked with whatever was handy including but not limited to the back side of her hairbrush, the fly swatter, or the bottom of her flip-flop.

I can honestly say that many times the knowledge in the back of my mind that I would have to answer to my mother kept me from doing things that would have been stupid, wrong, illegal, immoral and just generally bad. I never understood the term "god-fearing" but if you had said "mom-fearing" I would have totally gotten it. I had a healthy fear of my mother that kept me on the straight and narrow.

Two years ago today my sisters and I spent the day at my mother's hospital bedside. We took presents and her favorite cake and celebrated her birthday with her. She was already slipping in and out of consciousness and could only take the tiniest taste of her birthday cake. It was the last day she had any signs of awareness.

Two days later I was called upon to make that decision that we all hope we'll never have to make. My mother's doctor wanted to start dialysis ... and without it, she would die.

Mother had been ill for a long time. As she got older, mom had trouble with falling. She was diabetic and didn't eat right. She had fallen many times and not been able to get up on her own. We had moved her into a senior citizens apartment complex a couple of years earlier hoping she would at least be able to get help when she fell. Her health continued to decline, but she was determined to live independently. After one hospitalization, her doctor admitted her to a nursing home. She promptly called a friend to come and get her.

The real decline began the week of Thanksgiving in 2006. As the result of one of her many falls, she broke her hip. A few months after that she also broke her leg. During the last year there were numerous trips to the hospital and she was in and out of diabetic shock and diabetic comas repeatedly. Ultimately, she did end up in a nursing home, but she was never content with life there and always thought she would move back home.

Mother had lived for more than forty years with only one kidney. One of her kidneys had been removed sometime around 1962 as the result of a kidney stone that severed an artery. At the time we lived way out in the country and she almost died before they got her to the hospital. All of my life I remember her saying that there were two things she never wanted ... one was for one of her children to give her a kidney for transplant and the other was to be on dialysis. I think she always knew that when she died, it would probably be from kidney failure.

My mother's doctor recommended dialysis immediately telling me that it would only be for a couple of weeks and then they would be able to stop it. He had been my mother's doctor since the mid-1960s and, in my opinion, they had become friends and he was no longer objective about her care. He actually told me that he believed she would want dialysis. I was shocked to hear this in light of what she had always told me.

I spoke with both the urologist and the nurses who both told me that once they started dialysis it was highly unlikely that they would ever be able to stop it. Her one remaining kidney would not become healthy and start functioning as a result of dialysis.

I called all of my brothers and sisters who all concurred with me ... no dialysis. As I passed this word on to the hospital the nurse I spoke with reassured me that this was the best decision. There were many people who did not concur, among them my mother's doctor and the chaplain at her nursing home.

I have agonized over this decision many times over the past two years. I know that it was the right decision and, moreover, I know it was what my mother wanted. But that doesn't mean it was easy and there is always that little doubt in the back of my mind that maybe she had told her doctor something that she never got the chance to tell me.

I spent the next week shuttling between the hospital my husband was in and the hospital my mother was in. Mother died on October 16th. Because of my husband's illness and the fact that she was buried about 500 miles from here, I did not even attend her funeral. I tell myself that I did what I could for her while she was alive. I call to mind the scripture from Luke "Let the dead bury the dead." And I am at peace.

And now, some advice from Grams ... make sure your loved ones know your wishes. It doesn't matter whether you are young or old, healthy or ill. Some day you or someone you love may be called upon to make a similar decision. The greatest gift you can give them is the knowledge that they did what you wanted. Don't make them decide for you. Tell them in advance what you want.

Happy Birthday, Mom ... I just want to let you know that ... Grams made it!