October 3 – Support and Solace

by Khadijah

I was a teenager when I became a mother for the first time. I wasn’t married, and I had already begun the journey towards a college education and all that that would entail. In many families, such a thing would be cause for angry words, accusations, and a pulling apart of the fabric of the family. In my case, though, it ultimately resulted in my having a stronger relationship with both of my parents, as we faced the difficulties and challenges of unmarried parenthood together.

I don’t remember telling my mom, but I would guess I did so while driving somewhere or other in her little Dodge pickup. I do remember her telling me to go for a drive while she told my dad. When I returned after an hour or so he simply enveloped me in his big football player arms and told me he loved me and we would do this together.

The summer of my pregnancy passed quickly. Mom and I would go to the bigger towns that surrounded our little village of Gays Mills, Wisconsin, and shop on a regular basis. As a family we went to different tourist attractions around the state, like Villa Louis in Prairie du Chien, and the steam train in New Freedom. Dad would go for walks with me after every meal and sit up with me at night if I couldn’t sleep- something he continued to do after the baby was born- he would stretch out on the couch in his blue pajamas while I sat in the rocking chair nursing the baby.

When Mujaahid was born, on October 3, 1988, my parents were both present. While laboring I held onto Charlie, my stuffed monkey- Dad sat by me and held Charlie’s hand. When the contractions got too intense I sent him out to the waiting room. Mom said that he hadn’t attended the labor or birth of either of his own children, so I knew what it had cost him to sit in there, by my side. Mom stayed near the entire time, except for periodic trips out for a cigarette, telling jokes and lending quiet strength right up until the baby made his appearance.

And so it continued, even after I went off to college. My parents supported and assisted me in every way that they could, and I owe so much of what I am, and what my son is, to them. September 27 of this year saw the birth of my second grandchild, Yasmeen, to Mujaahid and his wife Hiyaat. I only hope and pray that I can be there for them, always, like my parents were for me.

Khadijah grew up in the Kickapoo Valley in Wisconsin and now lives in Yemin with her husband and eight children where she teaches Arabic and Islaamic studies to women and helps them recognize their importance and the need for their stories to be heard. Khadijah was the winner of the 2010 Story Circle Network Lifewriting Competition.

October 1 — A Daughters Birthday

by Linda Hoye

October 1, 1978 at 11:24am.

“Push! Come on, you can do it! Keep pushing! Look down here at the mirror; the baby is coming!” The delivery room nurse urges me to look toward the mirror positioned at the end of the bed.

“I can’t see! I don’t have my glasses on.” Why didn’t someone tell me that I’d need my glasses?

I give one more push with everything that is left in me and feel my baby slip from my body.

“It’s a girl!”

They lay her on my chest, and I look into the eyes of a beautiful, dark-haired, baby.  Laurinda is crying, red-faced, and obviously distressed at being so suddenly removed from the quiet and safety of the womb. The delivery room with its bright lights and hurried voices must be overwhelming to one accustomed to the silence of the pre-birth world. As her tiny fist grasps my finger my world shifts and my identity changes. I am now a mother.

Laurinda is, as my mom says, a “good baby”. She is happy, healthy, rarely fussy, a good eater, and an easy baby to care for. She’s perfect in my eyes. I delight in watching her grow and change and seeing her personality emerge. One day her imagination sparks an idea and she takes my face in her hands and looks me straight in the eye.

“You’re the big lion and I’m the little lion.” She tells me very seriously. I am not exactly sure what she is trying to tell me.

Fast forward sixteen years.

These terrible teenage years seem to last an eternity. She seeks to establish her own identity and, in doing so, wrestles against anything and everything that smacks of “family”. Our relationship is strained during these years when she strives to be the opposite of me in every way. Her brother teases her sometimes by telling her she is “just like Mom”. It is the insult of insults to her.

Fast forward fifteen more years.

Now my baby has a baby of her own and it blesses my heart to see her care for her own daughter. Laurinda is traditional, preferring books and building blocks to video games and electronic toys. She’s a teacher, gently introducing letters, numbers, colors, and new ideas in the course of everyday life. She’s committed to her daughter’s health and has a definite policy about what she can and can’t consume.

The relationship between Laurinda and I has changed, grown, and deepened over the years. It is one of the greatest blessings in my life that I can call my daughter my friend.  The other day I was thinking about the scene in the movie The Lion King where Rafiki holds up his cub Simba, and I was reminded of my young daughter’s curious comment about me being the big lion and her being the little lion. It seems appropriate that today I symbolically stand in the place of Rafiki and hold up Laurinda. I’m proud of her and she has brought more joy into my life than I could ever have imagined on that October morning thirty-three years ago.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

I am a full-time HR Business Analyst and a part-time writer currently on a memoir about my quest as an adoptee to find healing from deep and unrecognized grief. I nourish my muse with the taste of caramel frappuchinos, the scent of  Yankee Candles, the sound of quiet classical music, the vision of Mrs. Potato Head and Gumby and Pokey on the corner of my desk, and the feeling of my smallest Yorkie on my lap. I live in Washington state with my husband and our two doted-upon Yorkshire Terriers. When I’m not writing or working, I have the most fun spending time back in Canada with my husband, our children, and our two brilliant grandchildren. Learn more at: A Slice of Life Writing

September 18 – A Bittersweet Miracle

by Susan J. Tweit

On this day fifty-five years ago, just before dawn, my mom, Joan Cannon Tweit, brought me into this world. So today, I want to say “thank you,” and honor her life–and death.

Mom was a California girl, born in Berkeley during the Great Depression. She grew up hiking and camping in the Sierra Nevadas, honing her powerful crawl-stroke swimming in frigid mountain lakes; she had such perfect pitch that her high school choir director used her voice instead of a tuning fork to start concerts.

Mom loved school and went to college at University of California, Berkeley, a six-block walk from home, where she met my dad, a grad student in Chemistry. They married the June after she graduated, and drove to Mount Shasta to honeymoon, only the snowbanks were so deep, they picnicked in the middle of the one plowed road.

For almost 59 years, they were inseparable. Mom raised my brother and I, managed our household, earned a master’s degree in library science and worked as school librarian, all despite being legally blind.

She was a crusader against injustice in any form; she prized birdsong and wildflowers and mountains almost as much as chocolate; she loved good books, clear night skies, and classical music, and she passed her passions to my brother and me.

Determined to do everything for herself even after decades of rheumatoid arthritis reduced her 140-pound, five-foot, six-inch tall frame to 85 pounds and barely five-two, she refused help even when she knew her brain and body were failing.

Until she fell and broke her hip. “Your bones are so thin that we can’t fix the fracture; there’s nothing to attach to,” the orthopedic surgeon said gently. Coming home into hospice care, she found a kind of grace in being cared for.

I oversaw caregivers and medication, fed Mom, and spent hours holding her hand as she listened to the conversations around her, interjecting a word here and there.

The evening before she died, she was calm, lucid, tracking conversations, smiling at my husband Richard, lifting her eyebrows at a silly joke my dad told…

That night, Mom and Dad fell asleep hand-in-hand. When I checked on them an hour later, all was quiet. Same in the middle of the night.

At dawn, Dad called: “I think she’s gone.” I threw on jeans and a shirt and raced down the hall, Richard following.

Mom was still, smiling, and the skin on her face was warm and soft. I felt for a pulse. Nothing.

After I called her hospice nurse and sent Dad and Richard off to get breakfast, I sat with Mom, holding her hand as her skin gradually cooled. The sun rose, and then vanished behind a gray line of cloud. Snow began trickling from the sky.

I had just witnessed a bittersweet miracle, my mom’s final gift: a graceful death at home, helped along by love and caring.

Thanks, Mom.

Plant ecologist Susan J. Tweit likes to say she “evolved” into a writer. Her twelve books have won national and regional awards, and best of all, she says, the love of her readers.

August 14 — A Knock at the Door

by Carol Kunnerup

My cell rang during training. The kids wouldn’t call unless it was important.

Raechel was crying. ”Mom, can I move back home?”

” Of course. What do you need me to do?” She would borrow my minivan; her little zoomer would not hold much. Younger sister, Sara, would help her move out of her boyfriend’s house.

The girls picked me up after the training, seemingly in good spirits. I hugged Raechel and said we would help her figure something out. She was so independent that I could not imagine her wanting to stay for long. She would rather come by on her own for suppers, snacks and to hang out with her sister and little brother. We had all been enjoying each other this summer.

I had to collect Trevor from Vacation Bible School. She needed to go make her car payment.

”Raechel, we’ll be eating hamburgers across the street for dinner, come with.”

”I might go with friends,” she replied.

”That’s okay. I’m glad you’re here.” I told her.

‘Thanks, momma.’

I watched her walk to her silver little car. Beautiful, tan skin, cute tank top, luscious dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. She is home. I felt such joy and relief. I crossed the street to pick up Trevor from VBS, shouting, ”See you later, sweetie.”

Our regular routine, late dinner because of Peter’s long hours. We discussed how we would handle an adult child in the house. It would be a challenge for us all. Then all off to bed for us. I was wishing I had gotten her a key already.

There was a knock at the door. 1:30 a.m. Holy cow. This would definitely be a conversation with Rae tomorrow.

It was the officer Raechel had thought was so cute when he helped her unlock her car one of the times she locked herself out. Like mother like daughter.

He asked me to get dressed and come with him. Peter was sitting up in bed, wide awake and asked me if he should call Marilee to sit with the kids and follow me. Of course.

I was in a daze. The officer said nothing for our three block ride. There were so many young people wandering the hospital parking lot. I could not fathom why.

I was led in and a nurse greeted me. I followed her. I just knew that whatever happened I would care for Raechel and nurse her back to health. I would put everything on hold to help her.

The nurse took me to a curtained area.

‘I am so sorry. Your daughter was in a motorcycle accident with a young man. Neither survived. She passed away at midnight.’ She opened the curtain and there was my beautiful girl. My girl who just moved back home. My girl who had just asked if I could believe I have a daughter who would turn 19 soon. My girl who had taught me so much about being a parent.

I am a mother, a wife and a woman who is rediscovering her artist within. I have lived many places and find that my home is always with me; my children and my husband are the heart of me. We are in North Dakota on a lovely farmstead. I teach preschool and am working towards my masters in special education. Visit my blog at http://carolsquilting.wordpress.com

June 29 — My Mother’s Gift

by Andrea Savee

WHEN I DIE by Beulah Irene Hagedorn

When I die
close my eyes.
I will have
gone away.
Keep the news
quiet.
My departure will be
unnoticed,
except to you
who hear me
and watch.

Be quiet yourselves.
Hold no public services.
Sing a song
you like,
and deal with loss
your way.
I will watch.

Let no one look
at my empty body.
Give it back
to the earth,
quickly, quietly
and move on.
God watches.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

1921 by Beulah Irene Hagedorn

No one
came
to the
chamber
where
I waited
inviting
me
to be born.

I slid
down
the corridor
and entered
this side
of life
in a small
square room,
out
of a
nineteen
year old girl
to a
twenty year old
boy
who held
me and
whispered
“welcome”.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My mother wrote these poems in June of her seventy-ninth year. My mother, Beulah Irene Hagedorn, died June twenty third, two thousand four, six days before her eighty-third birthday. She left me all the words she’d ever written.

A flat rectangular dress-box bulges with hundreds of pieces of yellowing paper of various sizes. She began writing at age sixty following the end of her thirty year marriage. She wrote to save her life and her sanity, always in her usual elegant and steady script.

In the last decade of her life, she spent many months assembling a photo album in the large upstairs bonus room of her house. Pressed between the plastic sheets aren’t photos, but typed pages of poems, thoughts, remembrances filled with sorrow and grief, rantings and regrets. Eventually, reconciliations, revelations, and peace:

“I stayed and faced my demons where I had created them, where I found them–in the bedroom, at the dining table, in my children’s eyes, my ex-father-in-law’s groans, my ex-mother-in-law’s strained struggle to cope, and the dark accusing hours when my inner voices badgered me into hell and back. Finally, I walked through the night into the day repeating a litany of God’s promises of love and forgiveness, forgiving everyone in memory until I came to myself.”

I grew up hearing a fairy tale that turned out to be the story of my own beginning. She recorded this on one of her pages:

“My fourth child was conceived on August twenty seven, nineteen hundred and fifty nine because I knew from an unknown source deep within me that there was a child who would be a special gift to me.”

I grew up hearing my mother’s story from its beginning and living it with her to its end. In my hands now is her life in her own words de-constructed and re-constructed on the page. Words no one else has ever read. Until now.

Andrea Savee lives in Lakewood, California with her husband, Mike, and their cat, Chico. Retired from a career in business, Andrea enjoys traveling and writing. Her work has appeared in SCN journals and anthologies.

June 23 — A Distant Death

The day before my whole family was due to board a plane to Florida for my husband’s family reunion cruise, I got a call from my uncle Phil, who was a complete stranger to me.

My father left at my birth and we didn’t meet until I was fifteen.  I was apprised of his life by phone calls from his mother, as he went through six wives and became a Navy retiree.  However, Paul and I had not spoken personally for ages.  Grandma said he had a contract job in Saudi Arabia for the previous few years, and consequently I thought nothing of the lack of communication.

Ours was always a distant relationship.  He was a ghost who drifted in and out through the stories of others or the pangs I got when watching my husband being a fabulous father to our girls.

Paul showed no interest in me, and only once appeared in person when he mistakenly thought my mother was signing my custody away.  I realized even at fifteen, that though he was the sperm donor and a source of my genealogy, he was no father to me.  He never even expressed any interest in his granddaughters as they joined our lives, and I suppose that is when I finally truly wrote him off as a loss.

They say little girls grow up to marry their fathers, but I must say that was not my experience.  Instead, I had the freedom to make up the “wish list” for the man I would one day marry, and I think it worked out much better that way.  My father was the most emotionally remote person I have ever met, and I think I would have spent my life trying to please someone who could not be pleased.  It would have made me a far different person than I am today.

So, back to the call and that unusual day; Uncle Phil was calling to say that my father had committed suicide in prison.  I was shocked and actually thought for a moment that he was pulling some kind of cruel joke, but no, it was true.  Paul had not been in Saudi Arabia for two years…he had been in prison and met his end there that day.  I don’t know if this was the result of many years of mental illness or whether he was just tired of being alone.  Based on the crime that sent him to prison, I would assume the former, but I will never know.  It is mildly ironic that my work now is in mentoring programs for children of the incarcerated, for I never dreamed I would eventually be one.

He will never know me or what I have done in my life.  He will never know his beautiful, intelligent granddaughters who are achieving so much in theirs, and of course, they will never know him.

Not even in my stories, for I have none that would cause them to care.

I am a wife, mother, performer, businesswoman, philanthropist, genealogist and lover of life and a fan of the free will which God has given me to choose what I will do and just how happy I will be doing it!  http://kalipr.wordpress.com

April 29 – Relatively Resemblent

by Marjorie Witt

As Mother’s Day 2011 nears, I reflect on annual dual celebrations of Mother’s Day and Mom’s May birthday each year until her 52^nd year.  She would have been ninety this year.  As my 62^nd birthday rolled around this month, I went through the decade old process of sadness the turns to grief over her lost years. It feels strange, scary and uncomfortable to get older than her. But one thing I have learned is that when this annual reminder comes around, a sense of humor helps to create balance.  In that spirit I share the following weblog entry I wrote a few years back.

A few years back I was trying to train a new hairdresser. One day…
Hairdresser says: How about something a little different?
Note: This is the 2nd time she has cut my hair.

I say: OK whatever.

Wash…rinse…snip snip…gel…hairdryer…gook…teasing…hairspray…I look in the mirror.

Hairdresser: Do you like it?

Me: hmmmmmm

Hairdresser: Well I’m not letting you out of the chair until you say you like it.

Me: Do you think you can tone it down a bit?

Note: Is Aquanet back in vogue?

A little tugging here and there…actually she pulls on one hair and they all move. She pats the sides of my head but the mass just springs back into form.

Hairdresser: Better?

I look in mirror:

Me: Sure it’s fine.

I’m walking down the street. I look in windows. I see my mother:

I’m not dense. I know what comes next…grandma: 

Margie Witt joined Story Circle Network over ten years ago intending to “write the book.”  Memoir may be the goal but is currently best pursued in short stories as life unfolds with complex challenges. Balancing work, play, and raising a grandson leaves little time to write so blog posts appear with less frequency these days at www.wittbits.blogspot.com

April 8-Sobering Thoughts

by Marjorie Witt

An ordinary day, in our household, changes with the decade. There are only two things that remain consistent: the sun rises and I peruse the daily newspaper with the first cup of coffee each morning.

It’s the end of the eighties. We are in the midst of raising two teenage boys, I work more than full time, and life is challenging.

I wake up in the usual groggy fog, focusing my blurred eyes on the clock. My head throbs, my mouth is dry, and my stomach feels about to heave. I can’t remember what I did the night before.

I pour my coffee with jittery hands and begin the morning nag ritual, an impatient drill to get the boys off to school. It is Wednesday, my work at home day. My concentration is poor as I am distracted with the task ahead of us this afternoon.

We have an appointment at a rehab for our fourteen year old son. We’ve been in counseling for months now and nothing has changed. If only he would clean up his act, we could be a normal family. He’s resistant when I pick him up after school and inform him we are going to see a new counselor. He pushes his Dayglo green hair out of his eyes. “I’m not the one with the problem,” he says.

As we wait in the lobby for the assessment results, I study the sign above the receptionist’s desk, “This Too Shall Pass.” An hour later the counselor delivers the recommendation. “Your son’s drug habit is out of control. We can’t risk him leaving here today.” I am scared and desperate as she hands us papers to sign. Leaving the facility, I read the lobby sign once more. Maybe when the sun doesn’t rise, I think.

When we return home my husband offers me the usual evening martini and I turn it down. It’s not an ordinary day. I have decided I’ll never pick up another drink.

Margie Witt joined Story Circle Network over ten years ago intending to “write the book.”  Memoir may be the goal but is currently best pursued in short stories as life unfolds with complex challenges. Balancing work, play, and raising a grandson leaves little time to write so blog posts appear with less frequency these days at www.wittbits.blogspot.com

March 11 – That’s the Way It Was, Kendra

by Kendra Bonnett

Because March is Women’s History Month, I used my post on WomensMemoirs.com today to write about three women I have always admired. They are all at the top of my list of the women I most admire. But I omitted the name of the one woman who will forever hold the top spot. I’ve reserved her for special mention here. That would be Rosemary Buehrig Bonnett. My mother.

Moo, as our family and closest friends affectionately called her, was born in the small town of Tuscola in central Illinois in 1918. And as far as I can determine, she was different from practically everyone in her hometown…and I think they knew it too.

You see, my mother knew exactly what she wanted to do from the time she was very, very young.

Moo was an artist. It was her passion, shared only with the love she felt for her family. She won her first prize for drawing when she was just five. She passed math class by drawing architectural pictures for her teacher. She made posters for the local movie theater. Later, she often drew Hugh Chenoweth’s Polly Pippin comic strip when her friend and mentor was under the weather. And she originated the cute, round Disneyesque form for Kellog’s Snap, Crackle and Pop elves.

I think I know most of Moo’s stories because for as far back as I can remember, we talked. Dinner over, plates in the dishwasher, homework done, we’d sit and talk until it was time for me to go to bed. She told me stories of her childhood, the Great Depression, her years in Chicago first as an art student and later as a freelance commercial artist.

I sometimes wonder if my interest in storytelling and memoir has its beginning in the life story she was passing along to me in the course of our evening conversations.

I lost my mother in June 2001. I miss her and think about her every day. I think she’d smile to know the comfort I find in remembering her stories. She’d often emphasize the difference between her time and my own. It’s hard to imagine but people in her little town gossiped about the fact that my grandparents allowed Moo to go off alone to Chicago to art school. And when she was looking for her first job–at the height of the Great Depression–more than one company offered her a job for experience but no salary.

I can still hear her concluding one of her adventures…always emphasizing how different it was. “That’s the way it was, Kendra,” she’d say.

We owe a lot to the women who came before us, just as future generations will thank us some day. This Women’s History Month 2011, it’s good to stop and remember. I hope you’ll take time to think about the women you most admire…and read the rest of my list on WomensMemoirs.com. And find out how you can get two, free Rosie the Riveter Legacy Bandanas.

Kendra Bonnett is co-author of the award-winning memoir “Rosie’s Daughters” and one half of the team at WomensMemoirs.com–a resource for writing prompts, news, marketing/publishing advice, reviews and writing tips.

February 2-The Past is Present

by Judy M. Miller

There’s a small storm coming, purported to dump inches of the cold, fluffy white stuff overnight. One of our local weather-people shared the news with me during “a.m. drive-time,” on my way home from dropping the younger three-quarters at school this morning. Before we left for school, the weatherperson said it was going to be a “dusting.” How quickly things change…and don’t.

Upon arriving home, I began to sort through the kitchen, wiping down counters, washing dishes and sweeping the floor. Then I ventured into the mudroom, to take a load out of the dryer, warm and ripe for folding, and move the washed load into the dryer and fill the washer again. Yes, typical domesticity, but something other than obligation fueled me. My mental “to-do” list began to tick through my head and then it was interrupted by a conversation that I had with my mom decades ago.

It was a hot, humid, late summer afternoon. I was very young, around the age of seven or eight, and a severe line of thunderstorms was coming in, full of hail and the possibility of tornadoes. I had already slept through one tornado the year before and was surprised and grateful, as my great-grandmother said I should be, to be alive the next morning after seeing the damage it had caused in our neighborhood.

I was picking up and cleaning my room, without being asked or nagged to do so. After finishing I went and helped my mother in my brothers’ room. Aware that this was not my usual M.O. or how I usually felt I asked, “Mommy, why do I feel like cleaning and putting things away?”

“Oh honey, there’s a storm coming. It’s what women do–making things secure and tidy before something might happen, a way to prepare so that they can focus on the important.”

“But, Mommy. I’m not a woman.”

“No, you’re not, but you’re practicing to be.” And she smiled.

I mulled that over. I was not excited to become a woman. I liked being the tomboy who could keep up with and often beat my three brothers at their own games, so I addressed the other part of her comment, “What’s important?”

“You and your brothers are.”

And I smiled and felt all warm and mushy inside, like the best-ever caramel and hot fudge sundae–with chopped peanuts. Affirmation of my mother’s love, a comfort to me then and always.

The little things matter. Loved ones realize when you make the effort to “prepare,” so that you can take the time to provide the comfort and focus. Perhaps we’ll have to burrow in tonight or go late to school in the morning. But what I do know is that we can be together–safe, warm and loved–enjoying the fire in the hearth while Mother Nature covers us in a blanket of white.

I think I’ll make a pot of soup…

Judy’s work appears in parenting and adoption magazines, A Cup of Comfort for Adoptive Families, Pieces of Me: Who Do I Want to Be? and Chicken Soup for the Soul: Thanks Mom. She presented at the Stories from the Heart. Judy is an adoption educator and coach, blogs at The International Mom and Grown in My Heart.