Friday, January 24, 2003

Mary Lou was my grandmother. Hers had been a hard life, from what I witnessed. Years of alcoholism and heavy smoking had left her in very poor health; she spent her last five years living with her daughter’s family (my parents). I spent a lot of time with my Grandma and Grandpa (Warren, but everybody called him Shorty) when I was a young boy. They were a lot of fun, to my way of thinking. We spent most of our time together in taverns in small-town Kansas. It might make a parent shudder to think about it, but I loved it. There were always interesting things going on, and my grandpa would always let me reach in his pocket for a quarter whenever I wanted. I was quite the pinball wizard, provided I could find a chair to stand on so I could see. Grampa got throat cancer in 1975, and was dead by 1976. I was seven. It was hard for everybody to go through, but it hit my grandma especially hard. She lost a husband, a friend, a drinking partner; Shorty was the focal point of her life for many years. Eventually, she moved back to Topeka to live in an apartment of her own, and to be closer to her job. I remember, even though I was only 10 or so, feeling how strange it was for a woman that age to be getting her own apartment. It was the first time I remember understanding what it must mean to be lonely. Despite having what I would call a good relationship with my grandma, I can’t say we ever had a substantive conversation about anything, at least that I can recall. I’ve always tended to be superficial and aloof, even with family members. Never by design; it was just my way. It’s something I would like to change. As I got later into my 20’s, I started to wonder about my grandmother’s life, and why I wasn’t more connected to it. Why had we never talked about her childhood, or my grampa? Probably because I never asked, and never gave the impression that I gave a damn about any of that. Even when she was living with my parents, I never approached her about anything, never asked questions about the past. Barely said anything at all, really. "Hi, Grandma." "Bye, Grandma." And then, she died. I knew it was going to happen that way. The more I realized that I wanted to talk to her, the more I knew I wasn’t going to do it. As we sat at the funeral, I listened to someone give her eulogy, a well-meaning, obligatory representative of whichever denomination my grandmother had been. The problem was, I don’t think this person had ever met my grandmother; she hadn’t exactly spent a lot of time in church. It was the dreaded Generic Eulogy. As I thought about her life, there wasn’t a lot to celebrate, in my mind. She had lost her husband years ago, had bad health, and generally hadn’t had a lot of good things happen to her the last few decades. And now, someone who didn’t even know her was giving her eulogy. It was a bad way to end a life. I never spoke about this with my mother (so she’s surely going to be surprised to read about it). There wasn’t much to say, I figured. Grandma had grown up in Whiting, Kansas, moved to Topeka, met my Grandfather, lived very modestly, had two daughters, and lived harder than her body would tolerate. Obviously, there was more to it than that: Shorty and Mary Lou had surely had romantic moments under the moonlight, or the thrill of buying a first house, of seeing their daughters grow up; all the things that make up a life. But her last years weren’t easy, and I really didn’t know what to say or feel about her death other than be sad that I hadn’t spoken to her, or that her life wasn’t happier. And then, a couple years ago, I was looking at some old pictures with my mom. There was a photo of my grandmother as a very young girl, sitting in an elaborate chair, with a prim and proper dress on. It was recognizably my grandmother, but the picture didn’t seem to fit with what I knew about her life. I expressed surprise at the photo, and my mom told me this story: When Mary Lou was a young girl (Three? Five?) my great-grandmother had given her away to a family she knew in Oregon, because she feared that she wouldn’t be able to care for her. Times were hard, in a way I think is hard to understand for most people today. My grandmother’s new family was somewhat well to do, and there were brothers and sisters. She became one of their children, for a number of years. And then, my great-grandmother had a change of heart, or perhaps a change of means, and retrieved Mary Lou from the family in Oregon. Back to Whiting, KS. I’m not suggesting that being in Oregon was better than being in Kansas, or vice-versa. I’m not suggesting being with a wealthy family would have changed her life at all. I’ll never know that. And I certainly don’t blame my great-grandmother for either giving her up or bringing her back. I never had to walk in those shoes, thankfully. I thought back to my Grandma’s eulogy; there was no mention then of Oregon. Had she loved the people in Oregon? Was she old enough to understand that she had been given away? (Certainly, she understood it when she was older.) Did she ever think about Oregon late in her life, and wonder if things might have turned out differently for her? What was it like to be taken away from your family not once, but twice? My regret for not engaging her grew more deeply, and my sadness about her life grew more profound. Who knows how our relationship might have grown, had I been willing to invest some time? These are the regrets that build up over a lifetime. Most of all, I wish I had told her that I enjoyed spending time with her and Grandpa when I was a kid. Whenever I’m in a small town, or a tavern with regulars, I think of being with them. The thoughts aren’t all positive; you see people with problems, people down on their luck. But you also see people who care about each other, people trying to have a good time in the face of other problems that may exist in their lives. I can still picture being in Paxico, Kansas: Playing pool with the old-timers, Grandma and Grandpa showing me off to anybody and everybody in the bar, and Boston on the jukebox. Good times. 11:48:46 AM    Say what?[]

	Sunday, December 15, 2002

Snapshots from a weekend... I went shopping with my parents and Linus this weekend at Creative Kidstuff.  While there, I heard a little girl say, very loudly, "Grandma tooted!".  The woman turned bright red and quietly said to her granddaughter "No, she didn't." The guy I was standing next to turned to me and said, "So, she's a farter AND a liar."  I couldn't help laughing, which embarrassed the poor woman even more.   When your child stops at a certain toy in the store, and won't leave it no matter what other thing you try to interest him in, it's a good sign that it would probably be a popular Christmas gift.   You get spoiled, being around your kids every day.  The changes happen so gradually, they sometimes don't stand out.  Before you know it, you've gone from baby to toddler to little boy who has things to tell you and will listen to what you say to him.  Once that happens, things start to change very quickly.  My parents only get to see Linus every few months, and even then for a few days at a time, so the changes are much more obvious and profound to them.  As a result, the time they spend with him is packed with an awful lot of meaning for them.  I've noticed at times how they will simply sit and watch him, happy just to be with him and watch him grow.  It's something I do quite a bit of as it is, but maybe I should be doing even more of it.  It's all going by faster than I realize.     8:36:47 PM    Say what?[]

	Thursday, December 05, 2002

The Poopline I've probably heard it 100 times in the last month: "It's too hard to poop in the potty."  My son Linus, who's three and a half, has been slowly working through his relationship with toilets.  He's close to mastering #1.  Pretty much got that down.  But #2 presented a greater challenge, one that he didn't seem all that interested in taking on.  Now, I know that reading about my son's potty training may not be your idea of a good time.  There is a point to this story, but you'll have to bear with me. We've been patient.  No need for pressure, we had kept telling ourselves.  Well, overt pressure, at least.  We decided he might need some incentive; small gifts were purchased and wrapped up as presents, and placed in a bowl in the bathroom.  It was explained what needed to happen to get a gift.  I'm not sure if that's right or wrong, but after approximately 40,000 poopy diapers, your views change a bit.  Linus was interested in the gifts, and knew what he had to do to get one, but his refrain was always the same: "It's too hard to poop in the potty."  Case closed. A couple of days ago, Jane has a good idea.  She convinces him that if he can poop in his pullup diaper, while in the bathroom, he can have a treat.  Voila!  He returns, present in hand, poop in pullup.  This is progress. Last night, he tells us he has to go to the potty, so away he goes.  I call up to him a few minutes later, and ask him what he is doing.  "NOTHING!", he yells back.  Fine, a boy needs his privacy.  Five minutes later, he walks into the kitchen and announces to his that he pooped in the potty. Really?  Jane and I are very excited by this development, but I'm skeptical right from the start.  I ask "Did you flush the toilet?"  I'm looking for evidence, here.  My first thought is that he may have figured out that he could simply say he pooped, then say he flushed it away, and then collect his ill-gotten booty.  That tells you volumes about my thought process.  I expect him to say "Yes, I flushed."  Because he ALWAYS flushes.  It's the best part. He hesitates for a moment before answering.  A-ha!  His hesitation gives him away; he's caught in a web of his own lies!  But to my surprise, he says he did not flush.  Jane and I look at each other.  Could this be?  We all high-step it to the bathroom to pull our own Hans Blix routine.  As I'm going up the steps, I'm wondering what the toilet will reveal.  Which path has my son taken?  Is he about to be caught in his first lie?  Or has he begun mastery of his more essential bodily functions, a critical leap in his maturation process (and critical leap in my avoidance of stinky diapers)? Well, it turns out, we haven't raised a liar.  You'd have thought Linus won the Nobel Prize, judging by the reactions of the two adults in the room.  There were even high-fives.  Linus was a boy who could get the job done; as he opened his present (a Hot Wheels car) I asked Jane if she would have believed him if he would have flushed the toilet before we had a chance to verify. Jane says, "I just would have checked his butt, to see if it was dirty."  God, I never would have thought of that.  Leave it to my wife to go the practical route, while I'm metally giving my son the MMPI over this deal. But now, Linus has to learn a new lesson, that you aren't going to get gifts the rest of your life just because you can poop in the toilet.  Life is tough, Linus.  Life is tough. 9:22:28 AM    Say what?[]

	Monday, December 02, 2002

The Light-up Globe One of the first things I did when I moved to St. Paul was buy a light-up globe. I hadn’t really planned it that way; until I saw it, I didn’t even know light-up globes existed. But there it was, sitting on a table at a garage sale on Summit Avenue. I knew I needed something to spice up my apartment, which was as bare as could be. I had moved north from Kansas just the day before, packing everything I could fit into my 1985 Dodge Daytona. What few decorative touches I possessed at the time weren’t able to make the trip. And so, as I prepared to live alone for the first time in my life, and in a large and unknown city to boot, I decided that this light-up globe would be the perfect way for me to start my new life. Ten minutes and fifteen dollars later, that globe helped my near-empty apartment start to feel like a home. And so it went. During late nights, I would turn the globe on while listening to music. It was blue, mostly, and it made my apartment seem a little warmer as I learned just how cold winter in Minnesota could be. Over time, I learned that light-up globes are fairly common, but I didn’t care. I was glad to have mine, and whenever I used it, it always reminded me of those first days in my new city, and how strange it felt to step out into the world by myself. As the months rolled by, I went to more garage sales, and eventually real stores that sold new merchandise. New purchases pushed the globe off it’s prominent perch, and into less visible spots. I was still glad to have it, but you know how it is. Years went by. My wife-to-be and I lived in a variety of apartments, and finally a house. The story for the globe was always the same. My wife Jane, though not outspokenly against the globe, didn’t exactly lobby to make it our dining table centerpiece. And I wasn’t the strongest advocate for the globe, either. The light-up globe languished, barely able to avoid storage or another garage sale, and was rarely lit up at all. Eventually, we had a child, a son named Linus. The globe found its way into his room, more or less because there was nowhere else to put it. I figured that one day Linus would think this globe was really cool; at a minimum, it could function as a nightlight. More years passed. Linus, who is now almost three and a half, showed very little interest in the light-up globe. I’ve turned it on a couple of times in the past year, but he can’t be bothered with it. Fast forward to last night. I’m laying with him in bed, helping him get to sleep. He asks me what I think is a question about his robe; I tell him his robe is in the other room, and I’ll go get it. "No", he says. "I want to look at the GLOBE!" Really? I get it set up, turn it on. We sit on his bed in the dark and look at it, inches from our faces. I show him Minnesota, tell him that’s where we live. "Right there?" he says, pointing. Yep, right there. And this is where your Grandma Cheryl and Grandpa Ronnie live, in Kansas. "Right there?" he says. Yep. "And feel these bumps, Linus? These are mountains." And he feels the bumps, runs his hands all over the globe. He notices that there are a lot of mountains in Southeast Asia, and tells me to feel those big mountains. I do. They are big, aren’t they? He notices that there is some light poking through those mountains, an imperfection in the globe where there is a small hole. He asks me what it is, and I tell him it’s just a hole, and that you can see the light on the inside of the globe coming through. "There’s a light in there?" he asks excitedly. Yes, that’s why it glows. I can see he is impressed that this is a light-up globe. Then I show him the oceans, where it is an electric blue. "That’s water," I say. "That’s water?" Well, kind of. Then I explain how he flew over water when we all went to Belize when he was a little baby, and I trace that flight pattern out with my finger, and I turn to show him where Belize is… And he’s moved to another part of the bed to play with another toy, and has forgotten about the light-up globe altogether. Fair enough. We’ll have plenty of time to talk about that globe. It’s not going anywhere. 12:30:58 PM    Say what?[]

	Wednesday, November 27, 2002

Frequent Cryer Doug Hennessee I cry when I fly. Sometimes, I can get away with just a sniffle and watery eyes, but that's the exception; more often, I cry like the in-flight movie is "Old Yeller". It wasn't always this way. The first time I remember it happening was about four years ago, when I was beginning a heavy period of flying alone on business. There I sat, en route to Arizona or D.C. or God knows where, looking down on the grid of country square miles as they faded into the horizon. I realized, suddenly, that I had tears streaming down my face. This caught me totally off guard, and had to actually retrace my thoughts to figure out why I was crying. My wife Jane and I had a newborn son named Linus. As a brand new parent, probably flying for the first time since his birth, I figured it was natural to get a little emotional as I thought about my family back home. I remember thinking that it was odd that I didn't start crying as a result of some specific thought. I didn't dwell on it. On the next flight it happened again. Seemingly out of nowhere, thoughts of Jane and Linus came to me, and I just started bawling. I couldn't believe how much being away from home was affecting me. I didn't know if I was crying out of fear, love or joy. It felt like all of those, and more. I was overwhelmed. And so it went. Whenever I learned I would be taking another flight, my first thought was of trying to wipe my eyes on my sleeves out of view of the other passengers. Each flight was the same; I would sit in my window seat, gaze upon the landscape below, and just cry. Unfortunately, on one flight to Phoenix I absent-mindedly turned to the woman in the seat next to me just in time for her to see me bawling like Ed Muskie. My eyes were red, floodgates completely open, and I realized how I must have looked. I had no idea what to say. I ended up pointing to the open Civil War book in my lap, shaking my head and saying, "Those men were so brave." I had to stare out the window all the way from Nebraska to Sky Harbor International to avoid making eye contact with her again. Over time, the crying became a part of my flying routine. I accepted that it would happen (and still does whenever I fly alone), but accepting it was easier than understanding it. I've never been someone who spends a lot of time telling people how much and why I love them. I figure, rightly or wrongly, that the people that matter just know how you feel, and it saves everybody a lot of awkwardness and embarrassment if we don't have to sit around, hold hands and recite love sonnets to each other. Eventually, though, you start to feel that you've put off the kind words for too long, and the longer you wait, the harder it is for them to come out. Your emotional books start to feel out of balance, and before you know it, instead of planning to tell your own parents how much you love them at your college graduation, you're sitting at your son's graduation, and you haven't said a damn thing to anybody. That's where my Fantasy Strategy comes into play. I have carefully cultivated an elaborate fantasy about the moments just before my death, wherein I live just...(gasp)...long enough...(gasp)...to tell all of my family and friends who have rushed to my deathbed...(gasp)...how much I love them. And they, in turn, tell me how perfect their lives have been with me involved, and then I...(gasp)...die happy and guilt-free. I have seen this so many times on TV, I feel like I've already died that way hundreds of times. I've got my lines down pat. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, I have not been able to adapt that fantasy to accommodate a plane crash. If this thing goes down, I'm alone here in the plane, Jane and Linus are back on the ground in St. Paul, and I'm sure not going to be spilling my guts to the guy in the seat next to me who has fallen asleep on my shoulder. There isn't going to be any deathbed reunion and reconciliation. Whatever mundane words and actions I left them with are it. How will I tell my family all the things I should have, but didn't? I can write it on down on the barf bag, but anything I write will burn up in a crash. Nothing survives. Damn Hammacher-Schlemmer for not selling a lead document flask in Skymall magazine! I would have bought 20 of them by now. If we get word that we are going down, maybe I can fight off the other two people in my row so I can dial that in-seat phone in front of me in time to get through... So why haven't I told them? Why wait for that plane to go down? After all these years, I tell myself I'm still working my way up to it. I'm probably putting myself through unnecessary anguish. They know I love them. But there's something about being on that plane alone that makes me feel like I've been holding something back. Some lucky people can communicate their love freely and easily, in a way that doesn't make them or their loved ones feel awkward. The rest of us let it build up inside, but sooner or later, it usually finds a way out. Love knows where the cracks in your armor are. It may squeeze through those cracks in the form of words, but it can come out other ways, too. Like tears. Some people cry at weddings, or when they look at old photographs. I know men whose love for their father (or son) comes out most while watching Field of Dreams; I know a woman who cries whenever she looks at baby clothes. Me? I cry when I fly. 3:41:26 PM    Say what?[]

Here is a picture of my son, Linus.   2:53:41 PM    Say what?[]

© Copyright 2003 Doug Hennessee. Last update: 1/24/2003; 11:48:52 AM.