The Return of Mourning

This morning, I found myself fighting back tears. One of the parents of a Lower School student died this morning and I found myself weeping not just for the child’s loss, but for my own. This sort of thing hits too close to home for me. I was the same age as this child when my father died. One would think that at the age of 50, I would have reached some closure about my father’s death. But it still sneaks up on me and hits me hard from time to time. The clearest memory I have of that time is my father’s death. I can’t remember most of my classmates and for the most part I don’t remember much of anything about the first two years of school. What I do remember vividly is my father’s death: Hearing the noise he made when he had the heart attack; kneeling alongside my parents’ bed as the priest, illuminated by the bedside lamp, gave my father the last rites; going into the kitchen the next morning to tell my mother not to worry, that Daddy would wake up only to be gently told that he would not.

But it will be all right again. I have learned to let myself cry when these memories return and the pain strikes fresh in my heart. And I am, in some way thankful, because it means I still love my father and miss his presence in my life.

Goodbye Ann

Back on Election Day 1994, I sat in my car outside my polling place in Houston and cried. I had had one of those impossibly busy days when everything seemed to work against me. I hadn’t been able to go and vote before work because I had three children to get to school and then my to-do list at work was not only huge, but being added to every 10 minutes. So, I decided I’d just hit the polls after work. But I didn’t get out of work until late which meant a frantic dash to pick up my girls and then I had to track down my son, who was at a friend’s house working on a group project for school. By the time I found the classmate’s house, it was dangerously close to 7 pm and of course, my son still had to gather his gear. With the kids in the car and rain coming down, I made a frantic dash to my precinct polling place. But it was 2 minutes after 7:00 when I finally arrived and I was too late. So, I wept.

Given the outcome of that night, chances are my one vote probably wouldn’t have helped. But I still feel that I let Ann and my fellow Texans down. My feelings that night weren’t helped by the comment made by Michael’s classmate’s mom when I explained to her I couldn’t stay and talk as I was afraid I’d be too late to cast my vote for Ann. The mom, a rather rabid Republican, expressed her hope that I would indeed be too late to vote. (This is one of the reasons I will never convert to being a Republican. Too many of the ones I know wallow in meanness and intolerance.)

So, Ann, I’m sorry. I let you down and the end result is a president who measures patriotism, not by actual love of and support of this country, but love of and support of himself. He has confused respect for the office with respect for him. You never made that mistake.

I wish you could have had that second term as governor. And I wish that you were still with us, talking sense and taking the air out of those who believe just because someone voted for them must mean they are set above the rest of us. You always knew that wasn’t the case. You always knew we voted for you because you were one of us.

I’m not ready to wear beige.

My son headed back to college last weekend for what will (hopefully) be his last year. Over the summer, he traveled three different weekends to either see his girlfriend or attend various weddings of friends. After the first weekend jaunt to see the girlfriend, he came home, sat me down and said, “I’m sure.”

I’d like to be able to say I have no idea what he’s sure about, but that would be a lie. He’s sure about his girlfriend. He’s sure that she is the one for him. Sitting here at the age of 50, I remember the feeling of knowing the person sitting next to you on the couch was the one for life. The other thing I know at the age of 50 is how the same person can be sitting on the couch next to you and you question how much judgment you really had at the age of 22.

So my son is sure: Which leaves me looking at having to buy the dreaded beige dress in a few years time. And I am not ready to wear beige or any other color or style of dress which will identify me as the mother of the groom. This feeling has nothing to do with whether I like the girlfriend (I do like her very much) or any questions about my son’s being ready to take a step like this in the next couple of years. It has everything to do with the fact that I am not ready to be a woman of a certain age. I am not ready to be a mother-in-law. I am not ready to have a married child.

But now it will not be up to me to determine when I acquire my latest identity. Over the years I’ve acquired a lot of different labels which defined me. I’ve been a college student, a bride, a working woman, a mom, a working mom, a business owner, and so on. But with all of these identities, it was my decision to undertake a new persona. With these latest personas I am facing, it is not up to me to choose when I will transform into a mother-in-law or a grandmother. It will be at a time of my children’s choosing. And to fight it or complain seems to me to be churlish and selfish. They are my children. If I have done my job right, they will make the right decisions. And part of doing my job right is to free them to make these decisions.

But deep down inside, I am not ready to be anyone but who I am right now.

So this is summer

I am sitting at my desk at work. It is 7 pm on a Friday night and this is just the beginning of a very long weekend.

I work at a private school and I am responsible for all of the publications and print materials. Since my background is in art direction and graphic design, we don’t farm this work out. I do it all in-house. And it’s a good thing for me because I would much rather design an invitation or brochure than write a press release (another part of my job). But right now I feel totally overloaded. I’m currently in the middle of designing the charts for our annual report. By the end of August, I will have produced two invitations, two brochures, part of our phone directory, our 05-06 annual report, 4 PowerPoint presentations of varying lengths, and various other miscellaneous items, such as letterhead, envelopes, and prayer cards. Throw in all the other tasks that no one but me can seem to do, such as scan items for people (I’m the only one in the administrative wing with a scanner), updating things on the website, updating and proofing the email address entries in our listserv and helping out with at least 3 events. Oh, and taking photographs at all of these events and during the first days of school.

Tonight I’m focusing on the annual report, which has been driving me insane. The first full layout is due next Tuesday at noon to my boss. And it’s been an upward struggle. I am trying to make it match the look of the Annual Fund brochure, which was done by an outside agency last year. One would think that going by an already established look would make my job easier. But that’s not the case. The information contained in the brochure is vastly different from the information that is going into this annual report. So, it’s been a struggle. Today I finally got the other projects on my desk to a point where I could concentrate on the annual report and at some point this afternoon I developed a template for the publication that works. Now I just need to layout and format over 40 pages of copy.

In the next week or so, the parents will start to appear at the school again, smiling and asking how my summer was, innocently assuming that since I work at a school, I had a break. They have no idea that I spent more than a few evenings and weekends working at my desk wishing I was with my family and my friends enjoying the summer. But for now, I've got charts to make into elegant bits of artwork.