School Daze ~ Friday Five

mictori says, "Let’s reflect upon our school days in today’s Friday Five" ~

1. Favorite class during your many years of school?

A graduate course in Ignatian Spirituality, back when I was working on a master's in Humanities, and before I knew that I was going to transfer a lot of those credits to a seminary!  That course was one of those which set me on a path toward an entirely unexpected future.

2. Toughest class you have taken?

Chem 101 ~ I tried three times, and never got beyond the drop/add date.  I didn't understand a word of it, and I was surrounded by young pre-med students who'd already taken AP Chem.

3. Class you would love to retake?

Hmmm . . . . in seminary, I really.did.not.like. my required Christology course, which I took during the winter quarter.  One evening that next spring, I was sitting outside the library when a friend stopped by to tell me he was taking Christology with the new professor just arrived on campus, and that I would love it. Ha!  I said.  Not for me!  I have earned my credits and collected my grade, and I am quite finished with Christology.  He practically dragged me with him that night, and I was entranced.  Finally ~ the sort of scholarship and discussion which I had imagined seminary would be all about.  I audited the course for the remainder of the term, did an independent study and then a seminar with the same professor, and ultimately invited him to preach at my ordination. I would love to re-take that course, now that I have a few years of ministry and weekly preaching under my belt.

4. Favorite seminary or theologically-themed class?

See above.

4. Dream class – if you could design the ultimate undergraduate/graduate course, what would it be?

I am thinking about doing some work on wisdom literature and trauma,  so maybe it would be something like that.  Second choice: I have just finished a second time teaching an undergrad course in law (my first field) and religion.  I was unhappy with the way that I re-designed the course this time around, but I think that now I finally know how to do it.  If I get another opportunity, that one has some real potential.

Mother's Day, Ocean Day

If she were still alive, my mother would be 83 for tomorrow's Mothers' Day. 

I try not to harbor illusions about what her presence now would mean for me.  My father and my mother-in-law both face serious surgical procedures in the next month.  A friend and her husband moved his (decade older) parents into skilled nursing care yesterday. Similar versions of the same story are ubiquitous in my circle of 60-something year old friends who have parents still living. I know that my vision of an active, engaged, and healthy mother are mostly fantasy.

Pure fantasy, actually, since my mother died at 28.  I have no memory of her voice, her posture, her gestures.  I have a few recollections of various incidents, most of them concerning the utterly nonmomentous stuff of which daily life is made.

My daughter and I have had a couple of conversations recently about favorite childhood memories.  (Hers seem to center on cats.  So, to tell the truth, do many of mine.)

But in one of my very favorites, my mother and I are in the car, running errands in Vero Beach, Florida, where she and my father have just built the home to which they hope to move us, permanently rather than for just a few months at a time, from Ohio. I am six and it's May, just about this time of year, and I am beside myself with excitement.  I am about to acquire my very own bedroom ~ the boys will share another one ~  and I am consulting with my mother about my decorating plans.  My goal is one of those touristy beach shops, and my prospective treasure includes fishing nets and seashells and buoys and all sorts of ocean-related fabrics and colors. 

That room will never make it past my imagination, just as my mother and youngest brother will not make it past that year.

I will be fine without the room.  But what I will miss, which I do not realize until thirty years later, when I have a daughter of my own, will be the conversations.  The ones about me: school, friends, boys, sports, music, college, legal career, husband, house, children, loss, cancer, ministry.  The ones about her ~ and I don't even know what they would have been.  That move to the beach? More children?  Work?  A return to college?  Her friends?  Her extended family (all gone now)?   Travel?  Health?

I like to think that she and my dad would have driven up here yesterday to spend an extended week-end with us and the kids, because Mother's Day would be a happy kind of holiday.  (Something else I have missed: a mother who would have treasured my children as I do, and shown up frequently just to hang out with them.)  I imagine that she would be standing in the sunroom window, looking out at the back yard, and saying, "Robbie, I wish that you would learn to garden.  It would be so relaxing for you, and your yard would not look like an abandoned lot wishing for a lawnmower.  Would you like me to stay a few days and put some flowers in for you while you're at work next week?"

And I would say, "Momma, yes, that would be great, but could you make some kind of thing with the driftwood and shells out there, so it could look like we live on the ocean?"

Unless, of course, things had worked out as planned, in which case we really would live on the ocean.

Lose a mother, and you lose a whole entire way of life.  Ocean, and almost everything else.

Loss, 7.66

Target. I am leaving for a weeklong training tomorrow.  I need cat litter, some snacks, some Advil.

I see a flowing summer dress and jacket that would look great on my girl ~ if she likes it ~  so I toss them into the cart.  One of maybe my top ten things, picking up gifts for her.  She doesn't always appreciate my taste, but I do it anyway.  Sometimes it works out.

I walk past the displays of summer stuff.  Brightly-colored noodles and beach towels, picnic chairs and coolers. 

We used to have the best times in the summer.  I loved summer SO much.  My daughter said the other day that among her best childhood memories are the days that a group of us, moms and kids, lazed away at a lake south of here.  Moms hauling out food and talking for hours on end, kids splashing off floating whales and turtles and racing to the playground during swim breaks, everyone trudging up to the parking lot as darkness finally fell. 

I look at the noodles and beach towels. 

I want my boy back.

Fifteen Years

I am pondering, these days, the next fifteen years of my life.

Surrounded as I am by friends whose parents are requiring a great deal of attention and care, with a mother-in-law and father each having surgery in the next few weeks, and with not a few health problems of my own, I am well aware that, by the time I am 80 (in only seventeen short years!) I will likely be much more limited in my capabilities and choices than I am now. 

My friend Rosa described yesterday the realities of her father's move, first into her home and, imminently, into one of his own, and the sad and stark realization that many of the things she and her husband have planned for these years may not come to pass.

My husband is trying to retire. He is down to 3.5 days a week (which, of course, really means five) and had hoped to sever the ties that bind him to his professional life at the end of June, but has been convinced to stay through the summer.  He wants to focus on his competitive running, his pottery, and his soccer coaching ~ all well-earned after forty years of grueling work weeks, many of them for many years away from home.

Two of our children seem to be settling nearby.  I had once thought that they would live all over the world and that we would have the pleasure of visiting them in . . . . France? London? locales more distant and exotic to us? But their brother's death has caused us all to converge upon our home like pigeons and, while we are travelling again, we seem unable to imagine a permanent departure.

I know that the next few years will be full . . .  work, home repairs, perhaps a wedding, and of course, the needs of our parents . . . . but if I could choose, with what would I fill them? And those, more open to possibilities, which follow? 

Houses (Friday Five)

Today's RevGals Friday Five from Monica is about houses, spurred by her first home purchase:

1. What is the most important room in your home? What requirements do you have of this room? (Sure, you can answer “bathroom,” but we can stipulate that as a reasonable assumption and you can pick the second most important room).

The living room, I suppose.  It's definitely where we spend the most time, since (a) the tv is in here (yes, at the moment we have only one tv) and (b) I do most of my work on the living room couch.  I love the natural light in the living room, and I like the feeling of being in the center of everything.

2. What is the least important room in your home? The one you use the least, or are not very picky about?

The kitchen is the most un-satisfying room, but I guess it's rather important.  It needs a complete overhaul, but the next owners will be in charge of that event.

3. Do you have preferences for your neighborhood? What are they?

I love love love my neighborhood.  Let me count the ways:

• Wonderful neighbors.
• My friends of 30 years are here.
• One of the most diverse suburbs in the United States.
• Walking distance to stores, restaurants, library, parks, and hiking trails.
• Lots of variety in the apartments and homes, many of which are in the 90-100 year age range.
• A short drive downtown.

I don't think I would be happy living in a non-walking neighborhood, be it city, suburb, or small town.

4. If your elementary aged offspring were to choose colors for their rooms, would any color be off limits?

No.  When they were in elementary school, their room were a rather astonishing array of colors.

5. What is your best piece of packing or moving advice?

I haven't moved since 1984.  I think it would be: Get someone else to do it.

Image: Not my house, though mine often feels like this, in Cedar Key FL.

Lakefront Hike

Lake Erie Bluffs is a relatively new metropark in Lake County, about a 45-minute drive from our house.  Lovely Daughter and I headed there for the first time today, wanting to explore a bit and try out its three miles of hiking trails on this most spectacular of spring days.

We were well rewarded with an easy, paved trail north through fields and woods, clear views of the lake from the bluffs, the discovery of two well equipped and spectacularly located campsites ~ imagine watching the Pleiades meteorshowers over the lake in mid-August! ~ and a challenging hike back on the beach, where the water was high, the waves wind-blown, and the sand covered by driftwood.

Spring migrants included towhees, ruby-crowned kinglets, chipping and song sparrows, and red-breasted and common mergansers in front of of the lakeshore restaurant where we stopped for a late lunch.

We are planning a late summerbackpacking trip in North Carolina, so today's hike was a good baby practice.

Advocacy 101

With Ohio State Representative Anthony DiVitas

My son's death by suicide 7.5 years ago has made a mental health and suicide prevention advocate of me.  I've been to the Ohio Capitol in Columbus to testify in favor of legislation to require continuing education in suicide prevention for our public schools staff, and to Washington, D.C. twice to meet with federal legislators to discuss upcoming bills and prevention in general.  This week I was privileged to do the same thing in Ohio.

The first week in D.C, three years ago, I learned that this is a thing that people do:  They join groups and head to legislative offices to advocate for laws and funding.  Last year in Washington, we meet people from a pancreatic cancer group -- there were 900 of them! swarming all over the Hill -- and a car emissions group.  This week in Columbus, the anti-death penalty and the humane treatment for animals people were there.  And while I was in Columbus, my daughter was in Washington, doing the same thing on behalf of non-profit organizations!

Our task is fairly simple: meet for 15-20 minutes with a legislator and/or aide, tell a bit of our own story, and convey what we hope they will vote for on our behalf.  This year?  At least three legislators told me how much it means that we take the time to do this.  One shared related bills that he has introduced, pertaining to making assistance available to families in which school truancy is a problem.  My own state representative became genuinely excited about helping us with first responder training and about coming to speak at our local Out of the Darkness Walk in the fall. My state senator noted that we in our county have the highest number of people with mental health needs in Ohio, and the lowest per capita funding for same.

Seven years ago, I could never have imagined that I would find energy around the word suicide.  But's it's tremendously invigorating, to see and become part of government in action.   My inner lawyer emerged, I had a great time, and I hope we made a bit of a difference as well.