The Easter Brother

I consider the following to be quite telling about my own personality: I never believed in Santa Claus. I never, even as a little kid, imagined or believed that a man would go house to house in a red suit and bring toys and stockings to boys and girls.

I did, however, believe, until I was ten or maybe even older, in the Easter Bunny.  In my own defense I have to explain that we lived near the woods and I saw all kinds of rabbits, little baby bunnies and distance-covering jack rabbits, all the time. But I also had two older brothers who, as only big brothers can, facilitated, my belief. Sig and Larry would talk just slightly out of my earshot about The Bunny. “Don’t let her see him”, and “Did you see the basket he left next door?” They also, to make it more convincing, put bite marks on the handles of our Easter baskets.

My brothers died when they were 42 and 48. Now I’m the oldest. At Easter I miss them. I miss having an Easter basket from Lar who –even as an adult—made me one that included the bunny’s teeth marks to remind me just how naïve I had been. And I miss our sibling tradition of finding the family “King Egg”.  As Easter approached we would each decorate our own hard-boiled egg, fortifying them with dye and crayon and competed (Sig and Lar were both went on to become engineers) by ramming our colored eggs together to see whose broke first.

I also miss dressing up for Easter services, complete with new dress and corsage. The three of us continued to go to church on Easter even when we had walked away from organized religion. We kept this holiday because we all liked the uplifting Easter hymns like “Up From the Grave He Arose”.

I kept going to church on Easter even as, and after, Sig and Larry were dying because those Easter hymns gave me a weird hope.  It was not a hope of miraculous recovery for  either brother,  or necessarily for a reunion in the “Great Beyond”, but  hope for  my  own  “arose” from the heartache of losing my  brothers,  my playmates,  co-conspirators and occasional torturers.

One of my final conversations with Sig was about my car. I was 40 years old but still easily defeated by my car worries.  Larry, who was then sick, was caring for Sig who was dying, and I called their house in tears to report the impending death of my car. Larry, who was on the phone with me, relayed the mechanic’s opinion to Sig who was lying in what would soon be his deathbed.

Larry said to me, “Sig wants to talk to you”. I was surprised because Sig’s speech had become painful and very difficult for him. I waited until Larry positioned the phone for Sig to talk. “Here’s what you tell them….”, he began, and he proceeded to dictate a set of car repair instructions to convince any mechanic that I knew a nut from a bolt, and that this girl had a brother who would not see his sister taken for a ride.

At Easter I have the best memories of a girl with brothers—of a basket-carrying rabbit who was “just here a second ago” and of making faces to spoil the, “Come on; Say cheese” Brownie snapshots that Dad took of our Easter outfits.

Apart from any  theology, Easter lets me believe in the resurrection of my family, of my all too gullible girlhood self, and in a life that rises, falls, rises and dies over and over as we each cycle through layers of loss and gain.

Anne Lamott's New Book

If you’ve been around for a while and you love books you will know the writer Anne Lamott. She’s been writing about her story for at least 20 years—her brilliance shows up in nonfiction—like “Operating Instructions—Journal of My Son’s First Year” and “Traveling Mercies” and “Grace (eventually)” books about her spiritual journey. She also writes wildly funny and insightful fiction—the Rosie stories. In those works of fiction you can follow Anne’s continuing growth and changes.

A few weeks ago her new book hit the stores. It’s called, “Some Assembly Required” and it's her memoir of her son (yeah the one in “Operating Instructions”) becoming a father at age 19 and her love affair with him, his girlfriend Amy and their baby Jax.

It's also the story of a woman with long-term sobriety, who is deeply committed to a spiritual path and who struggles mightily with, well… let’s call them “Alanon issues.” Its about parenting an adult, trying to figure out what is advice and what is control, and what is intrusion versus love. She comes down on the plus side of most but not without letting us in on the pain, the huge mistakes and how painful and funny it all is. (Funny—only because it’s happening to her and not to us.)

As in her earlier books she tells on her self and she shows us how even great recovery is lived in the breach.

You might be tempted to skip this book because there is a picture of a new baby foot on the cover, or because you think this is about babies or grand parenting. Nope, that’s just the foot in the door to a great book about addiction, codependence, boundaries, feeling feelings, and aching to make another person’s life different while deeply committed to your own growth.

Some Assembly Required—isn’t that all of us?

Mother in Law

On the road in Palm Beach…

And I am humming the Eddie K. Doe song,  "Mother-in-Law”. It makes me laugh but in truth it’s a dilemma for a recovering woman. Here I am, every day, praying for God’s will and to surrender my will and to see God in everything and to be kind and caring and generous and gracious and then I want to kill this woman!

It feels tricky too because I am torn between just going along and getting along and the other part of my recovery which is taking care of myself and saying “No”, and “No, thank you”, and “I would prefer…”

We struggle with food—she’s a fabulous cook—but I am trying to eat more healthfully. Her feelings are hurt if we don’t clean our plates. I’m tempted to put a baggie in my lap and sneak my dinner into the trash. But being reduced to that version of codependence is my wake-up call.

Yesterday I had this revelation: If she told me that her feelings would be hurt if I didn’t try her favorite cocktail I’d be thinking, “Oh well, you gonna feel bad.” I wouldn’t take a drink to please a hostess so why eat to please one?

But there is another side to this too: I am a mother-in-law as well. Visiting my mother-in-law makes me much better when the shoe—or the quiche—is on the other foot.

I’m counting my blessings: my mother-in-law does not drink and she’s in good health and she lives in a very beautiful place. But I’m heading to Nordstrom where the shoes are not booze and the fragrances are not cake and I can find a souvenir to take home to New York!

Good Friday

I have an Easter memory from years ago. I was living in Washington, DC, and that year was a low point in my life. My older sister had recently died and both of my brothers were seriously ill; my best friend was leaving town, and on top of that I was questioning my work.

In my journal that April I wrote, “Am I depressed?” When I read those pages now I laugh and shake my head. “Depressed?” That I even had to ask. In that long year I thought I’d never laugh again, just as I thought I’d never again feel love, the joy of easy friendship, or the satisfaction of good work.

I went to church that Easter out of both habit and desperation. I had grown up in a church going family. It was what we did. And so to honor the family that I was losing I went. I chose a big downtown church for Easter services—one with hundreds in the congregation--not daring to visit a smaller church where I might have to speak to people or be embarrassed by my own tears. I wanted the paradoxical safety and anonymity of being in a crowd.

The minister that Easter Sunday said many things that I don’t remember but one sentence has stayed with me all these years. He said, “We live in a Good Friday world…” That I understood. A Good Friday world is a world full of suffering, questioning, unfairness, trouble, mistakes, hurts, losses and grief. That was certainly confirmation of my life that day. “But”, he continued, “We are Easter people.” Those words stopped me cold. I was stunned to be reminded that painful morning that there was something other than what I was feeling.

My life was not instantly transformed; his words did not change the course of my brothers’ illness; nor give me answers to my questions. But the idea of being “Easter people” gave me a pause in my grief and the teeniest hope that there really did exist something other than pain.

Today all of the things that hurt so much back then have changed. As my brothers died friends came forward to help. I began to write and publish. Months later I fell in love and moved to upstate New York where a new life began with new friends, new work and yes, of course, new problems.

What strikes me now is that this believing in “Easter” in the midst of “Good Friday” is as much about being an American as it is about being Christian. Americans are, by character, a people of reinvention. There is an extra layer of intention that we bring to “new life” that isn’t true even in other predominately Christian cultures. As Americans we are future oriented, we look forward not back, and we are, for the most part, a culture of optimistic, hopeful people.

The gift from that Easter service many years ago was the reminder that we are, by religion or culture, a people who believe in possibility. When our hearts are shattered we are sometimes shocked to discover that there is joy as well as pain inside. Out of the ashes of our mistakes, from our defeats and even our despair, we rise again in better lives.

The Ides of March

When I was  little I had breakfast with my father on Sundays. It was a special time and part of that was the menu: we ate donuts. In our sugar-free house this indulgence was permitted only on Sundays for efficiency’s sake. My father hated to be late, and so, in theory, this simple breakfast was a way to get us to church on time. But as my father was prompt, my mother was not, and so I was alone at the table with my Dad on Sundays.

Part of this special time was a joke we shared every Sunday--and it was every Sunday for many years. My father loved the classics and he tried to teach his children Latin. So on Sundays as I would take my first powdered sugar donut from the white bakery box, he would say, “Did you know that Caesar liked donuts?”

And every week I’d say, “No, did he really?” And my Dad would say, “Yes, Caesar and Brutus had donuts for breakfast every day. But one day Brutus was late for breakfast and the donuts were all gone, so Brutus turned to Caesar and asked, “Hey, how many donuts did you eat? And Caesar replied,

“et tu Brute”.

Holiday Airports or How to Test Your Recovery

We are home. A three day holiday trip to the Mom-in-Law became 8 days. Delay, cancellation, stand by. By now you know what happened in the Northeast and consequently what happened to airplanes and airports everywhere.

In addition to no clothes, no phones, no makeup, no internet and no fruit –in Florida! I did get a great experience and test of my recovery.

Here is the bad news and the good news:

In the first day –or two—I saw my almost physical resistance to acceptance. “They do not mean our plane? Not our plane; not my plane?” (You would have thought I owned the plane). Even when the very patient airline staff member explained that Yes it was Florida and no there was no snow here but there were also no airplanes here either—I had this visceral insistence that it could not be. Then as I accepted that we’d spend the extra night, God laughed. It was explained that we’d spend at least four more nights. (It turned out to be five).

That first day I felt very unrecovered. Then I also watched myself be very nice to complete strangers but a cranky, unsettled wife to my husband. What does it say in the Big Book about how the people we love get hit the hardest?

The other not-so-recovered part of me that I got to witness for days was the shopping addiction. This was totally weird. I did not drink, smoke or take any drugs. I also did not binge on sugar or pizza or holiday goodies but I shopped at airport newsstands and at CVS like it was Saks: “Oh, look pink nail polish, I must have some; and those plastic barrettes adorable! and nude colored peds—amazing! This went on for days.

The other less than recovered part of me was my thinking—mostly about work. I called my boss who was very gracious but I could not shake the worry—“what will people think?” “I’m going to be in trouble.” “I’m such a bad employee”, etcetera etcetera etcetera. All those paperback self-help books in the airport newsstand did come in handy. New word: rumination. New list for my therapist: What the…?

But there is also good in this unexpected holiday inventory:

My first instinct was to pray. And to pray for acceptance. Even though the results were not great I did keep praying. And I kept saying, “This is what it is and this is what is happening”.

I also started a gratitude list. I was sober and stayed sober, I just bought 18-hour mascara, my manicure was the new varnish kind that lasts two weeks; I had eight days with my husband in small spaces and some of those days with his mother who sometimes called my by his ex-wife’s name—and I laughed! And I and we kept laughing.

Also on my list: not traveling with an infant—several families were; Not blind—a couple near us were BOTH blind; no one screaming at me—a husband behind us in the long wait lines kept screaming at his wife. And no drinking—we saw lots and lots of drunken people in airport bars.

But here’s the best and what I want to hold on to: In all these days all my comforts and defenses were removed from me: privacy, control, looking good, attractiveness, work—I could not please or impress or even create and I found out that even with all of that removed—I still exist.

Get Ready for Thanksgiving

This week we are preparing for Thanksgiving. There is a lot of shopping and cooking in the next few days --but there are also emotional preparations to be undertaken this week. Like many, you may be torn between the happy anticipation of a good meal and seeing family, but also the dread of family feuds that leave you wishing to hide in a corner of the living room.

Along with the usual “issues” that each family faces around the turkey table—the in-laws, sibling rivalries, and adolescents with attitude—we can stir in some raw feelings about national politics and a debate on the economy. It’s Thanksgiving in the REAL America and nobody’s very happy.

So many of us so want it to be the other Thanksgiving, the one we imagine that other families have, but which really only happens in made-for-TV movies. WE think that Thanksgiving’s just not what it used to be-- But then again, it never was.

It seems that we can’t shake our romantic idea about that first one with the grateful Pilgrims and the wise Indians, but it’s safe to say that most of us wouldn’t have been comfortable at that dinner either. The truth is that the Pilgrims, with their cute buckled shoes, weren’t innocent refugees from persecution. Rather they were religious zealots and not exactly tolerant.

Here’s the history: After the Protestant Reformation and the split from Catholicism—creating the Church of England--there were many who felt the church still needed to be “purified” of Rome’s influence. Those were the Puritans. Among the Puritans were some folks who were even more extreme and who wanted complete separation. These were the Separatists--we know them as the Pilgrims. These were not folks who believed in freedom of religion. What the Pilgrims believed was that the Church of England was corrupt, that Catholics were the Devil’s spawn and that they were superior in knowing God’s truth.

We still have some emotional resonance of those ancestors and their vibe is with us at Thanksgiving. So be prepared.

Part of the problem is that religion permeates this day directly or indirectly; someone or something is being thanked for the good in our lives, but there are political tripwires from the stuffing all the way through to dessert. Most of us will be sharing a meal with folks who not only mix their potatoes with their peas but who mix politics with their religion: Every current event, everything in the headlines--war, terrorism, same-sex marriage, the war and the Middle East—touches religion in some way. And that intersection of religion and current affairs will cut right through the dining room table on Thursday.

Even saying grace is tricky. When the blessing includes a prayer for peace someone at the table will be listening for what kind of peace? Do you mean Get-out-of-Afghanistan peace or the bomb them into submission kind?

On Thursday we may be humming, “We gather together…” but in our heart of hearts we want to insist that OUR team should win, that OUR recipe for stuffing is the best, and that OUR candidate was right.

So if you find yourself dreading the doorbell, or if Uncle Harvey mentions the President when he says grace, you may want to retreat to the kid’s table or sit in the den to watch the game. But Instead, give thanks that this holiday comes only once a year, and remember--- it’s all in the spirit of the day.

Bread and Roses

"Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes. Hearts starve as well as bodies; Give us bread, but give us roses". — James Oppenheimer

In 1912, thousands of immigrant textile workers in Lawrence, Mass. went on strike protesting grim working conditions and a cut in their wages. The strikers, mostly women and girls, had a solidarity that crossed ethnic lines and that endured in the face of violence.

The writer James Oppenheimer was in Lawrence that winter and penned his famous “Bread and Roses” poem after seeing mill girls carrying a banner that read, “We want bread, and roses too.”

That well-worded demand still resonates. That our workplaces should allow for both good wages and a high quality of life is something we can thank the labor movement for.

For most of us Labor Day weekend signals the end of summer. Most see this holiday as a celebration of not working rather than a day to acknowledge the labor movement and its contributions.

It wasn’t always so. For a long time in this country Labor Day was passionate holiday, a day of speeches, rallies and remembrance.

Growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1950s, the city retained just enough civic and social memory to experience Labor Day as a sacred holiday. There were memories of lives lost in the plants and mines, and lives saved by safety rules and union working conditions. Labor history and its emotions are fully embedded in my family psyche.

My family never would have come to America if not for the steel strikes that lured starving Polish workers to industrial cities with promises of jobs, food, survival. But the jobs they came to take were other men’s jobs, other immigrants who beat them here by a few years and who were striking the mills.

My Pittsburgh family was in Pittsburgh's Lawrenceville. Five brothers and one sister. There was no need to talk about a “work ethic”. My father went to work at 14, his brothers at 14, 15, even Joe, the “baby” was working and putting his earnings on the kitchen table to support the family. These uncles were such hard working men. It was fear and survival and a crazy hope that their own kids would get high school diplomas and maybe—crazy idea—some college—so they would not have to do the physical work their fathers did.

The eastern European immigrants arrived as strike breakers and they were despised. Yet they wanted exactly what men carrying the placards wanted: enough for their families. Later, after joining the union, they took their turn carrying signs, walking the line and paying their dues. I remember this. The whispers about meetings and strikes and yes, more fear. My father, his brothers, neighbor men. Scab was a really, really dirty word even though I didn’t know what it meant apart from skinned knees.

But that sense too that the union was a brotherhood. That I understood. I had all these uncles and two brothers of my own. When they were not beating me up they were protecting me. So maybe my child’s eye view of Labor’s brotherhood wasn’t so far off. My older sisters married men in unions: painter and teacher. Oh, Pittsburgh’s first teachers strike. The craziness, the debate and again, the fear.

I saw what the union did and what it meant: protection, benefits, work, paychecks. That small pile of money on the kitchen table lasted a little longer. We could—mostly—pay the bills.

But now we ask: Has organized labor gone too far at this point? Cost us too much?

Those arguments can be made. We all know of some ridiculous demand or workplace practice allowed only because of the union, but let’s remember the benefits that accrue to all of us because of the labor movement.

Even in non-union workplaces, the standard in the United States is five eight-hour work days per week. And, yes, it is a bumper sticker, but it’s also true: American labor brought us the weekend. A six and-a-half day workweek was the schedule for a long time.

In addition we can thank organized labor for rest rooms and smoke breaks and clean places to eat lunch. It won safety laws, paid vacations, sick leave, pension and insurance plans, policies and procedures that most of us take for granted.

The labor movement also brought us social reforms, such as child-labor regulation, advocacy for free public education and the concept of equal pay for equal work — that was part of the National Labor platform in 1868. We enjoy these gifts whether or not we belong to a union.

But one of the biggest contributions from organized labor that we don’t appreciate, because it’s so very close to us, is our middle class way of life. In large measure, organized labor’s efforts over decades established the American middle class. Decent wages and job security allowed workers to buy homes and cars and send their kids to college, which fueled our economy and what we now so easily disdain as middle-class life.

So this weekend, while you celebrate a day dedicated to working people by taking an extra day off, please take a moment to thank those girls in Lawrence, Mass., and even Jimmy Hoffa for a working life that includes both bread and roses.