Working from home and the least engaged employees

I read an article today in the New York Times about the CEO of WeWork who meant that employees who enjoyed working from home were those who were 'least engaged' in their jobs (WeWork’s CEO: ‘Least Engaged’ Employees Work From Home - The New York Times (nytimes.com) I had to laugh. I thought to myself--another dinosaur. Another entitled leader without social antenna or emotional intelligence. My advice to him is to join the 21st century before it leaves him behind. 

The pandemic has shown us all how it is possible to keep on working productively and effectively while working from home full-time (or mostly full-time). Those of us who have administrative jobs have not experienced major changes in how we do our work. The greatest challenge I've faced during the past year has been getting my hospital's VPN to work at home; my company had to work that one out. It took some time, but they did. I need to have access to work emails from home and it has to happen via a private network. Does it always work? No. But 90% of the time it does. So I won't complain. When it doesn't work, I find another task to occupy me. The days go by, and work gets done. 

I'm an older worker without children to care for. Many of the younger couples in my neighborhood who are new parents have enjoyed working from home this past year, for good reasons. They have been able to spend each waking day with their infant/toddler, and I've watched them take turns caring for their children. The fathers are outdoors pushing the baby carriages while the mothers are at home working. Or vice versa. They are relaxed and their babies are relaxed. Of course, we are talking about parents with one child each. Families with several children each may not experience the same amount of relaxation, especially if the children are of school age and were stuck at home during the last year. I've read articles about the parents who have used a lot of time on home schooling and the challenges involved in trying to work from home and home-school children. It can't be easy. As always, I would guess that much of the work falls to the women in the family, who do all of the above plus clean and run the house. So the WeWork CEO is most likely referring to mothers when he says that those who enjoy working from home are the least engaged. As I said, he lacks social antenna, because if he had them, he'd understand that maybe these women appreciate the extra time gained not spent commuting to and from work. Perhaps they appreciate being able to use that extra time on their actual jobs when they are at home, despite all of the other things they are asked to do. As always, it's a man commenting on these issues. I'm really so tired of hearing what men have to think. Why not ask women CEOs? Oh, I forgot. Men still outnumber women when it comes to occupying those coveted CEO positions (Women Business Leaders: Global Statistics (catalyst.org). Why doesn't that surprise me?

I've worked in academia my entire career (dominated for the most part by men at the higher levels). All I've seen are men who have prioritized their careers at the expense of family and friends, at the expense of hobbies and other interests. Many of them (now old) are divorced and alone. They face old age and sickness alone. Many of them were unfaithful to their wives along the way. Many of them were never there to help raise their children. It seems strange to me that society would expect men and women to behave this way and then expect them to have a decent family life. My brother hit that wall when he had children; suddenly sitting in his office until late hours did not appeal to him, and it caused him trouble with his bosses who thought he should not be leaving at 5 pm every day. But he wanted to be with his children, and it cost him one job. But if you get your work done within regular work hours, why shouldn't you be allowed to leave at 5 pm without that being a negative thing? It's because we Americans were raised to think that 60-hour work weeks somehow make you important, invaluable to your company. And for some decades, it probably was that way. But no longer. Companies are no longer loyal to employees who dedicate every waking hour of their lives to their companies. Younger people want a life, and thank God for that. They enjoy their work, but they also enjoy their family lives and friends. And most younger women would not tolerate being married to a man who worked the way men in my father's generation worked, or even men in my former boss's generation (close to 80 years old now). They gave their all to their jobs, but for the life of me I cannot see what they got back that was so much more important than their families and friends. 

So working from home gets two thumbs up from me. Being able to be flexible about when one needs to focus on work, or on family, or on home life and friends, is worth gold. If the WeWork CEO has a problem with that, it's his problem. Society is changing rapidly, and it has passed him by. Good riddance to these types of men. 

Making struffoli for the holidays

An Italian tradition that my father and mother followed each Christmas when we were children--making struffoli. They made it together, sitting at the dining room table. My mother would roll out the dough, and my father would cut small pieces of the dough and roll them into small balls that my mother would fry in peanut oil. Once they were drained and cooled, she would pile them all together on a big plate and cover them with honey and some candy sprinkles. Struffoli are to die for, and we loved them. We could never really get enough of them. They're sticky, gooey and wonderful.

Here is a photo of struffoli that resembles the struffoli my parents made, and a recipe for struffoli that my parents used. 

(photo from https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/struffoli-51203810)

This is the struffoli recipe my parents used (from my father's mother who was born in Caserta, Italy, very near Naples):

• Mix 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour and 1/4 tsp salt.
• Add 4 beaten eggs, slowly, and then 1/2 tsp vanilla. Mix to make a soft dough. 
• Turn dough onto a lightly-floured board. Knead, then divide dough in half. Roll each half to form 1/4-inch wide long strips. 
• Cut each strip into pieces 1/4 to 1/2 inch long. Roll into small balls. 
• Fill a 2-quart saucepan up to the halfway mark with peanut oil. Fry as many of the small balls as can float, over medium heat. Fry until brown. 
• Drain the struffoli on absorbent paper. Let cool. 
• Place the contents of a 16-ounce jar of honey in a small saucepan. Add 2 tsp sugar. Boil until clear. 
• Take the cooled struffoli and dip pieces in the clear honey, arrange them on a plate, and cover with candy sprinkles. 

Reminders of past times with loved ones

I bought four more Christmas films so that I can watch them whenever I want during this holiday season:

• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058536/?ref_=nv_sr_1
• Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060345/?ref_=nv_sr_3
• Scrooge (1970) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066344/
• The Snowman (1982) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084701/?ref_=nv_sr_3

Scrooge will forever remind me of my brother and my mother, who both loved the film. So I know I will be feeling nostalgic for the times I spent with them at Christmas while I am watching this movie. They also loved the film The Snowman. Christmases now and in the future will always be a reminder of loved ones who have passed. While I don't focus on death or sadness, they are both a part of life. There is no real life without them. Experiencing sadness makes the happy times in life happier, because one knows what sadness really is, so that one can appreciate and be thankful for the happy times. 

I've been watching a lot of Hallmark Christmas films on one of the local channels here in Oslo that has been showing a Christmas film each day during December. I haven't been able to watch them all, but the ones I have watched are sweet, often romantic films, that follow a tried-and-true pattern: boy meets girl or girl meets boy, they are attracted to each other but other things get in the way of their being together, there are often trials they have to overcome before they can acknowledge their feelings for one another, and then finally, they can be together. I thought I was past watching such films, but the older I get, the more I enjoy them. They have simple sweet plots, the characters are most often kind people with normal life problems, and they treat each other respectfully. In short, they are really films about normal ordinary people to whom I can relate. Some few of them are memorable; others are forgettable, but quite enjoyable to watch. I'd rather watch them these days instead of filling my mind and soul with disturbing and violent images from crime films and series. The real world is full of both, so I no longer need to see them on film. 

Preparing for Christmas

Christmastime is one of my favorite times of the year. It's the feeling in the air, the sense that something is happening around you, the feelings of hope and anticipation. I never fail to be inspired and moved by the hope and spirit of this season. Advent is the time we have to prepare for Christmas, and as I wrote in one of my previous posts, I have fond memories of preparing for Christmas as children in grammar school. I can remember some of those times like they were yesterday, they have so much meaning for me. Many of those times are coupled to what we did in grammar school, but also what we did with our parents. What we do together with children to prepare for Christmas is something they will remember for their whole lives, whether it is baking cookies or making gingerbread houses, going to Christmas exhibitions and markets, going to church and looking at the nativity creche, or going to see The Nutcracker ballet (for the umpteenth time--I never tire of it, although it is always sold-out now here in Oslo long before I get around to buying tickets). My parents took us into Manhattan a few times to walk around and look at the department store windows (Macy's, Lord & Taylor, Bloomingdale) that always had beautiful Christmas decorations and scenes. Afterward, my father would buy roasted chestnuts from a street vendor; I remember to this day how much he liked them (and how much we didn't). He worked in Manhattan for many years; I remember he liked to go to the food section at Macy's at Herald Square before Christmas, where he bought Italian hard candy with different fruit fillings for us and plum pudding for my mother. He would also purchase a panettone, a sweet bread loaf with raisins and candied fruit that we ate every year for breakfast on Christmas Day. And he and my mother would also make struffoli, an Italian (Neapolitan) dessert made of deep fried (in peanut oil) marble-sized balls of dough that were then covered in honey and candy sprinkles. 

It is those memories of my family Christmases that I carry with me always and that I celebrate each year in combination with the Norwegian traditions of my husband's family that have now become our traditions. But beyond the cultural traditions, it is the religious and spiritual traditions of Advent that I remember well--having an Advent wreath with four candles, and lighting one for each of the four Sundays during Advent. When I was in my mid-twenties, my local church in New Jersey would have nights when we would distribute food we had made to the poor and homeless; it also sponsored evenings where we would get together at different people's homes to discuss the scriptures (a type of Bible study, I guess). We would also pick a charity and donate as a group to that charity. Our local church in Tarrytown where I grew up also had a gift tree with tags hanging on it; we would pick a tag and it would describe what gift was wished for by a young girl or boy, without naming their names. Sometimes they wanted toys, other times clothing. We would also collect canned foods and give them to the church that distributed them to struggling families who did not have enough food. My heart was always cheered by the sight of the huge piles of canned goods and food that were collected. We were raised to pay attention to those less fortunate than we were; we were raised to care about our fellow man, and to give because we had enough to give. The concept of giving to the less fortunate was not something we only did at Christmas, but for some reason, what we did during the Christmas season made a huge impression on me, especially as a child.

The priest at church today talked about finding time for prayer during Advent. He said something that struck me as so true--that God makes contact with us (initiates it) in many ways, giving us countless opportunities to get in touch, so that our prayers are not so much requests for something we want from God as responses to God's attempts to contact us. That makes prayer a two-way street and I like that idea. It makes the connection near and personal, and it is a reminder to pay attention to what happens around us, because what happens around us and in our daily lives are the possibilities we have to listen to the voice of God and to prepare for Christ's coming.

Advent and the Christmas season

This Sunday, December 2nd, is the first Sunday in Advent. There are four such Sundays before Christmas, which gives us good time to prepare spiritually for Christmas. I remember when we were children in Catholic grammar school; we used to create a Jesse tree that we hung on the classroom wall. The Jesse tree was supposed to help us connect the Biblical events from creation to the birth of Jesus with the tradition of decorating Christmas trees (you can read more about the meaning of the Jesse tree here: https://www.whychristmas.com/customs/jessetrees.shtml). I don't remember what ornaments we hung on the Jesse tree, but they represented some Biblical story. What I do remember is that the Jesse tree, like Advent wreaths, made a lasting impression on me. We did all these things in art class, and I remember the feeling of doing these things and the sense of anticipation that accompanied them. We knew that we were celebrating the birth of Christ at Christmas. It was fun to anticipate what kinds of gifts we would get on Christmas Day, but it was also nice to have the time during Advent to prepare for Christmas. I have nice memories of grammar school and the things we did in class to prepare for Christmas. Our grammar school classes also sang Christmas carols at the local nursing home as I remember. The memories I have of that time are comforting; they contribute to that feeling of completion that is a part of the Christmas holidays for me. I know that even when I am old, I will feel the same way, much as my mother did. She looked forward to the Christmas season each year, and prepared for it in the same way each year up until she passed away. That was also comforting to see. It is a reminder of how important it is to have family traditions; how they draw us together and define us as a family. They contribute to the memories of childhood that I will treasure forever.

That feeling of anticipation remains even now, many years later. I like this time of year. I look forward to Advent, to the time to prepare for Christmas. All of the different preparations are bound together--religious traditions, family traditions, and cultural traditions (American, Norwegian, Italian and British). I always have an Advent calendar and try to find a religious-inspired one each year (not always so easy). I set out an Advent wreath or a candle holder with four places for candles that I light each Sunday during Advent. I still write Christmas cards that I send out to family and friends, and I try to find time to do some inspirational/spiritual reading during December.

In the USA, A Charlie Brown Christmas will be shown on TV early in December. That is a tradition that we grew up with in America and that we looked forward to every year. We sat and watched it together with our parents, who also enjoyed it. I have the DVD now and watch it each year, for the sweet reminder of what the Christmas season is really all about. We also watched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas--also classics. Watching them reminds me of my parents and of our family.

Advent is many things to me, but it is the feelings of hope and anticipation that will permeate these next four weeks. I wish you all a good Advent--one filled with hope and anticipation, but also with time for reflection and solitude. For in the midst of all the merriment and social activities, it is good to find some time for quiet reflection.

Reflections on Elena Ferrante's Troubling Love

I never thought that I would come upon a novel that would describe so accurately some of the feelings that I had as a child and teenager about my father’s quarrelsome siblings (three sisters and one brother). Confusion is certainly one word that described my feelings about them as a young child. Fear and anxiety were other feelings. There was a lot of drama in the lives of my aunts and uncle, and that drama extended to and included us when we were together with them. Being around them was nerve-wracking, because you never knew what dramatic spectacle would unfold when you were together with them. My father was the peacemaker in his Italian family; it was a thankless role, and one I am not sure he really wanted, but one that he felt he should take on given all the problems between the siblings. He was a good and kind man, stable and dependable, not prone to unpredictable outbursts of temper or emotion. His siblings were the opposite. Their behavior led to arguments in funeral parlors, crying jags in others’ homes, angry phone calls and snippy letters, returned gifts, perceived slights, arrogant behavior, inferiority complexes, and a whole host of other strange occurrences. Children were not excluded from their punishing behavior. If they were upset with my parents, they punished us as well, e.g. by not remembering our birthdays. Only one aunt tried not to be like the others, but the others ran roughshod over her because she was a passive soul for most of her life. I can remember Sunday family dinners that ended in conflict because my mother felt that it was time for my aunts and uncle to go home since it was a school day for us the next day, whereas they felt that it was their right to sit in our living room until they decided it was time to go home. It made for uncomfortable occasions, which caused problems between my mother and father; my mother felt that my father took their side, while they felt that he cow-towed to his wife too much. Then there were the letters detailing the perceived slights and insults they felt when they visited us (again my mother’s fault although my father came in for his share of criticism as well). Or the angry phone calls where my uncle would berate my mother to my father, who again was put in the position of defending his wife against his birth family, a position he hated. He wanted so much for both sides to be friends, something I knew would never happen. Even as a child, I knew this with absolute certainty. I’m sure my mother knew it too. The differences between them were too great. I remember being fascinated by adult behavior as practiced by my father’s siblings; it was unpredictable, unstable, dramatic, emotional, anxiety-inducing, fear-inducing, and ultimately childish. I may have been a bit scared (and scarred) by it as well. My father’s siblings were not really adults, but rather children whose emotional needs had been stifled (due to circumstances beyond their control that had to do with my grandfather’s financial losses during the Depression) and which led to their becoming immature adults. That’s the way I look at them now, and that has helped me to forgive their behavior. But when I was a child, I felt torn. I was intensely loyal to my father and mother, but I wanted to have good relationships with my aunts and uncle. It was not to be. I remember feeling suffocated at times by the idea of extended family. It seemed to me that family, as my father’s siblings defined it, meant that everyone had the right to have an opinion about what everyone else in the family did. They did not understand boundaries, nor did they understand that marriage meant that you put your spouse first, ahead of them. It was expected that you would listen to them and abide by their comments and advice; if you didn’t, you were subject to their tongue-lashings and scorn, as well as their anger about being ignored or slighted. I never really knew how to deal with my aunts and uncle when they lived, and when they died, it was hard for me to feel any emotion at all. My father was sadly the first of his siblings to pass; I often think that the stress of dealing with his siblings played a large role in making him ill. I felt mostly relief when each of my father’s siblings passed. I was free, we were free, and my mother was free. Free from behavior that threatened to suffocate and to annihilate one’s idea of oneself. Because the concept of wanting a life for oneself was forbidden in my father’s family. It was not allowed that one could want that, or want to prioritize one’s spouse and children. One had to exist for one’s birth family, and make choices that always included them, no matter what. One had to put birth family first ahead of spouse and children. Looking back, I see how strange it really was. But it was my only point of reference, my only definition of adult behavior that I had, and I see now in retrospect that it was warped.

Elena Ferrante’s book Troubling Love describes an Italian family quite different than that of my father’s family. Delia, the main character, has complicated feelings about her relationship with her mother, Amalia, who separated from her physically-abusive husband when Delia was a young woman. When Amalia is found dead (drowned in the sea) and Delia goes to her funeral, it unleashes a torrent of thoughts and feelings that we are privy to as readers. The story involves other characters and sub-plots that help us to understand (without accepting or forgiving) Amalia’s husband’s jealousy and rage. But Ferrante is unflinching in her description of abusive men, for whom she has no use. She depicts them in all their garishness, naked rage, and lust. It is not a pretty picture. Ferrante is so good at describing exactly what it is that Delia feels, but at the same time, we end up wandering with Delia through her tangled nightmares as she relives the traumas and memories of her childhood and youth. There were events that happened in her childhood that should not have happened, and behavior that she and her sisters should have been shielded from. But they were not. It is the feelings Ferrante evokes via her writing that struck a nerve in me. She can describe those feelings of suffocation, of cloyingness, of bewilderment, of duty, of need, in a way that I intuitively recognize and remember.

As I grew older, I made myself a promise that my life would be so different from the lives of my aunts and uncle, and it is, but only after much reflection and risk-taking. When family life is not about love and loving others, but rather about hatred, conflict and jealousy of others, it is no small task to try to undo that or to surpass it. Troubling Love is not a book for everyone’s tastes; many people will find it disturbing and uncomfortable. It is both those things. But if you have experienced the claustrophobia of one type of family life, you will be drawn into her story, and it is well-worth the read. I don’t know if I could have appreciated Ferrante’s book had I read it in my twenties; it is the only book written by her that I have read so far, but I do think that I could manage to read more of her writing. A lot of years have passed and I have the distance necessary for me to read such stories. One can ask, why do you want to? My answer is that it is a way of facing those early fears and bewilderment and finding out that one has overcome and perhaps understood them. Literature serves many purposes; for me, it is not solely about entertainment, but rather about finding answers on this life journey. It has always been about that for me.

Remembering my brother

It is three years ago today that my brother Raymond passed away. He is always in my thoughts. I hope his children remember what a great dad he was to them. I remember how close he and I were as teenagers and young adults, and how Manhattan was 'our' place where we met for lunch and dinner when I was in town. When we were in our twenties, we would get together with friends and all go dancing. Those were fun times and great memories. I will always remember his uncanny ability for imitating Mel Blanc, who did the voices of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Ray could do their voices as good as Mel Blanc. And I will remember the triathlons and interest in biking (my interest as well) that kept him fit and happy in his twenties. Our lives took separate paths once we both married, but we remained close and shared our thoughts on life, love and work. Whenever I see him in my mind's eye, it is as the vibrant and positive person he always was. So this poem is for him today.........

Do not stand at my grave and weep    by Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

Raising strong women and my father's contribution to that

I sometimes wonder if my father knew what he was doing when he sat at the dinner table together with me after dinner, discussing the world news and debating with me about different topics of interest. I was a teenager at that time, in high school, and we did much of the same in our history and sociology classes. So it only felt natural to extend this behavior to the home arena. It was considered a sign of intelligence to be interested in society, in politics, in the life around you. It was considered a sign of intelligence to have a reasoned opinion about some of the important events that were happening around us, and important to impart that opinion in a reasonable manner. I credit my father with teaching me that it was important to use your brain, to use logic, to use reason, in order to argue and debate with others. He was no fan of the bully approach, and would probably have coined the phrase ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’ if it hadn’t already been coined before him. He was a great reader, as I’ve written about in this blog before. An intelligent man, an intellectual, a peace-loving man who was uncomfortable with raw conflict. He had served in WWII and lived to tell about it. I know he was proud to have served his country, but he was no war-monger. When the Watergate scandal broke, he and I watched the drama unfold on TV and watched the Watergate hearings (1973-74) together. We discussed it all, from all sides. His requirement for discussions and debates was that we used logic and reason, not just feelings, to present our opinions. He was not the kind of man that tolerated utterances such as ‘he’s an asshole’ or ‘what a jerk’ as interesting contributions to a discussion, even though we both might have felt that way about certain politicians at the time. And so I learned from him that discussion, debate and even arguments had their place in daily life. Conflict and differences of opinion were part of life; it was how you handled them that mattered. He was not perfect, and even he at times could opine about his feelings rather than his thoughts on certain matters. Then I reminded him of what he had taught us. He was not afraid to tell me when my arguments didn’t hold water, and that infuriated me, enough so that I could storm away from the dining room table, but I retreated and did my homework and came back stronger the next time. He wanted facts, logic, reason and a civil manner on top of it all. God love him for it. He helped to create strong, independent-thinking, and rational women (me and my sister) who are proud of their intelligence and talents. I think he did that because he knew what we would face in the world. I wish he was still alive, because I know he would have discussed the role of women with me now, in 2017, and how terrible it is that the current president and his cronies want to return women to a time when their opinions and wishes did not matter. He would have been appalled at the language that the president uses about women, and appalled that the world had come to this point where women were reduced to objects, to be abused and attacked, bullied and mocked. He would have deplored the state of the world in 2017.

I bring up my father because I believe the world needs more men like him. He was ahead of his time, in so many ways. He was one of the first men I knew who would absolutely have preferred to spend more time with his children and less time at the office. He had a good career as chief technical librarian for a number of companies, but he never brought his work home with him. He never spent evenings immersed in work projects that could wait until the next day. He never complained about how busy he was or how little time he had for everything. He was a family man and he made time for his family. His evenings were spent talking to us about the world, helping us with homework, and testing us in preparation for exams the next day. He and my mother bought me my first microscope set at one of the science fairs in our local grammar school. My father would patiently sit with me as we looked at slides of amoebas and diatoms together. He was as interested as I was in the natural world, but he could not keep up with me once I immersed myself in science as a career. But he was proud of me and proud of my endeavors. He called me at work once to tell me that he loved me, and I never forgot that. He would clip out articles from the newspaper and send them to me (my mother did the same)—science-related and literature-related. Because after science, it is world literature that interests me. That is in my genes from both my parents. My father was interested and involved in our lives and God bless him for it. If your father is the first man who teaches you about men, I’m glad that he was the man who taught me what a good man is. I used to tell him he was cute, and that made him happy—he would smile that little smile he had (my mother said he had a particular way of pursing his lips). I never left my parents’ house without telling them that I loved them. Because I knew that my father could disappear from my life at any moment due to his poor health. Unfortunately, I made my mistakes when it came to choosing men to share my life with, as have many others. A failed first marriage was the result. Even then, my father was supportive. I remember walking around our neighborhood, he with his cane to steady himself after a stroke he had had, and we talked about my unhappy marriage and what to do about it. He and I both knew that it would never improve. He understood what it would cost me to divorce my first husband, and he understood that my life would never be the same. Sadly, he didn’t live to witness my divorce nor did he get the chance to meet my current husband. But I know that he wished (and wishes) me well, in that universe of parallel lives where he lives now, perhaps as a healthy man. I hope so. I do know that he is still a loving one. 

Out of the blue

And so, out of the blue, one day before the sixteenth anniversary of my mother’s death, I received a message request on Facebook from a person I did not know. That person turned out to be my first cousin Robert, the son of my mother’s sister, Mildred, both of whom I had never met as a child. In the space of a few days, I have discovered my mother’s side of the family (a side that we had little to no contact with growing up), thanks to Robert, who has done extensive searching to create a family tree. His tremendous work organizing it has paid off. It is extremely interesting to see how large my mother’s family actually was. Her mother had five children by her first husband (who died), and then five by her second husband. Robert led me to Victoria, another first cousin, who is the daughter of my mother’s brother Joseph. The family spread beyond Brooklyn where they grew up, to New Jersey, Indiana and Maryland. Among the things I have discovered is that heart disease does not just run in my father’s family, but also in my mother’s, as many of her brothers and sisters (and father and mother) passed away due to heart conditions, strokes or kidney disease. It explains why my mother was so focused on eating healthily (little fat, few sugary desserts) and on remaining thin her entire life. It has not escaped me that I got to know that Robert existed one day before the anniversary of my mother’s death. I’d like to think that this was her way of communicating with me, perhaps to let me know that all of the secrecy and untold tales of her family are secret no longer. They are the stories of another era, when society’s constraints and rules were harsh and when there was little tolerance for lives lived outside of those constraints and rules. I understand my mother so much better now for having met Robert, and I am grateful that this opportunity was given to us.

Moments and connections

This past weekend was a ‘moments’ weekend, where something I read or heard triggered memories of my parents and my childhood. At mass this morning, something the priest said must have unconsciously triggered a memory of my mother, and all of a sudden it was almost as though I could feel her standing in the aisle beside me. Going to mass together was one of the things we used to like to do when I visited her in Tarrytown during the 1990s. I remember sitting in the church with her, singing the hymns that she liked, and hearing her sniffle when something in the hymn touched a nerve that made her tear up. Now, fifteen years after her death, I cannot sing those hymns without the same thing happening to me because they remind me of her. Perhaps those hymns reminded her of her own mother. I thought of how tightly I am connected to my mother, that the bond between mother and child is so strong, stronger than death. That’s a comforting thought, not a sad one.

Later on, when I was standing in the kitchen cutting up a pumpkin to prepare puree, I remembered how much my mother loved the autumn, how much energy it gave her for new projects. I was feeling that way the entire weekend. Whenever I have worked in the garden, I have felt her presence as well, and that is no surprise since she loved planting her own garden in the spring. A small flower garden, but one she was very proud of and that looked so lovely each year. She planted morning glories at the base of the lampposts so that they would have a post to climb as they grew. She planted a trellis on the side of the apartment building we lived in, and grew red roses there. And she ordered her tulip bulbs from Holland each year from a catalog company I don’t remember the name of. Whenever I hear the birds in my own garden, I am reminded of my mother’s love of birds. She would watch them from our kitchen window as they gathered in the dogwood tree outside the window, and during the winter she made sure they had enough food.

I think of my father too, when I am sitting at the dinner table with my husband and we are discussing different world situations. It reminds me of all the times I sat with my father after dinner and discussed the state of the world with him. That was when I was growing up in the 1970s. In the 1980s, when I was working in Manhattan, I would sometimes meet him for lunch since he worked there as well, and we would wander over to St. Francis of Assisi church on West 31st Street. I seem to remember that the church had a bookstore/gift shop then, and we would purchase a book or two and look forward to discussing them after we had read them. I checked the church’s website but could not find any mention of the bookstore, so perhaps it no longer exists or perhaps my memory is faulty. My father and I bonded over books and faith, and they led to spiritual and intellectual discussions that buoyed me through my teenage years.  He was my link to the outside world and to the work world. He died over thirty years ago, a lifetime in so many respects. Yet that connection too remains strong.

Books are the portals that allow me to connect to my parents. I remember them individually and together. I was closest to my father when I was a teenager, and when he died, I grew very close to my mother. As a child, I remember them as a couple, sitting together in the evening reading their individual books. Before my father’s health diminished him, he would sometimes tease my mother or chase her around the dining room table. That vision sticks in my mind—that they had their happy moments in the middle of their trying times, mostly due to my father’s poor health. His health is what I remember most as I neared my twenties; I can see my mother walking with him after he had his first stroke, helping him cross the street to the church so he could attend mass with her. She never wavered in her care of him. She took care of her blind mother before she met my father, and then my father and us children after her marriage. It is her faith, loyalty and devotion that stand out in my mind to this day. She had the strength and courage to live her life the way she felt it should be lived. She found grace in the small things; she did not seek the limelight nor would she have been comfortable there. The older I get, when I think about who are the heroes in my life, they are my parents. Their lives were far from perfect, but their faith in God and in each other did not disappear. No matter what private doubts they may have had from time to time, they stayed true to each other and to us. That is all that matters in this life. Nothing else—not worldly glory or fame or money. What matters to me is that the connection to my parents remains strong even though they are no longer physically alive. But they are very much alive in my heart and soul.

Reclaiming the best parts of ourselves

Getting older is about reclaiming the best parts of ourselves, the parts that we discovered as teenagers but then buried for fear that they might be ridiculed or destroyed. Or possibly because we felt sure that no one would understand us if we expressed them. Because the world that we grew up in, while less intense in terms of social media pressure compared to today's world, was every bit as intense when it came to ‘fitting in’ or ‘assuming’ personalities that were acceptable to society. Some of those personalities included career woman, feminist, wife, mother, successful man, husband, and father—all of the things that we had to deal with and make choices about in our 20s and 30s. But I remember my teenage years; they were about self-discovery and about wanting to find the path inward to my soul after reading St. Teresa of Avila’s book The Interior Castle or The Mansions. She described seven different rooms that a person had to move through in order to find God. Those years were about intense emotions, strange new feelings, spiritual exploration and even an interest in the mystical; questions about life’s meaning, our purpose on this earth, and our place in the universe. But after I left those years, I entered another world, one that required that I fit in, work for a living, contribute to society in one form or another, and be responsible. I have done and do all those things still. But I long to clear the decks, to make room once again for the young woman trying to find her way in the world, discovering new areas inside herself, before responsibility, duty and work took over.

That young woman was a writer; she wrote poetry on a daily basis, as well as short stories. She was a reader; she loved sci-fi and crime novels, English literature and poetry. She wanted to be like her father and mother, both avid readers. She talked to them about what she read, and they in turn did the same with her and suggested books for her to read. She read Thomas Hardy’s novel Jude the Obscure (her father was a Thomas Hardy fan and she became one too), and cried at the end of that novel when Jude died alone. She remembers wandering into the living room where she found her father to share that sadness; that memory stands out because he understood how she felt, like he understood so much of who she was when she was young. He always listened to her; that was his gift to others—the ability to listen well. Her female friends loved him as he always made them feel welcome and accepted. He understood that life was unfair (because he had experienced it himself) and that Thomas Hardy was able to write about that unfairness in a way that appealed to him and to her. Her father died when she was 29 years old; he died too young. She remembers driving home to the Bronx the evening he died, a wall of grief all around her. It almost seemed real, as though the car that she was driving would smash against it. That too is a memory that she recalls clearly all these years later. He never got a chance to see the woman she became or the woman she is now. The woman who is returning to her literary roots, planted by her parents, who were gardeners of all things literary. She is returning to her roots in other ways as well—as a proud American with a new interest in American history, trying to sort out all that makes America a great country. She loves returning to her hometown where she was born and seeing the changes as it moves on without her. She is not nostalgic for the past. Yet so much of Tarrytown remains the Tarrytown of her memories—the Tarrytown Lakes, the Hudson River estates, the river itself, Rockwood State Park—all the places that left their imprint on her heart and soul when she was a teenager. She spent a lot of time alone as a teenager, and understands only now the purpose for that. That solitude was a gift to her in the midst of much that was sad around her--her father’s illnesses, family crises, unemployment and uncertainty. It became something to seek after when she entered her 20s and 30s, knowing full well that she would not find much of it during those years. Even in her 40s, there was little in the way of solitude, because each waking minute was occupied by daily home and work routines. But when she entered her 50s, her world changed, for reasons she is still not quite clear about.  The need for solitude re-emerged, stronger than ever. Solitude became something to fight for, to defend; it became a meaning for living—a purpose. It was suddenly very important to ‘have a room of one’s own’ so that solitude could be ensured. That meant being firm about the need for that; it meant not giving in to what others wanted immediately. It meant being selfish in a good way; putting one’s ideas, dreams and wishes first, for once. It meant not sacrificing what was important to oneself. Because without solitude, there is no chance to discover or rediscover oneself, to examine one’s life, to find the special meaning in one’s life. It was Socrates who said, “The unexamined life is not worth living”. She understood that as a teenager, and now again as a woman moving toward her 60s.

A new poem for my brother

Moving on

Seven months have come and gone

Months you did not get to see

All the life that once was yours

Weeks gone by, life moved on

Thinking of you, not forgotten

But then there are those sudden thoughts

A hand grips tightly round my heart

Is life’s struggle all for naught?

Were your life and death in vain?

So unfair, your early exit

Left behind uncertain fates

And sad hearts that know of pain

Seven months have come and gone

Those in your life move on without you

I see you in my mind’s eye alone

I wish I could have protected you

copyright 2015

Paula M. De Angelis

My father’s reading list prior to 1936, continued

Androcles and the Lion—George Bernard Shaw

Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch—Alice Hegan Rice

A Christmas Carol—Charles Dickens

Edith Trevor’s Secret—Mrs. Harriet Lewis

The King of Kings—Jeanie MacPherson and Henry MacMahon

The Black Pirate—MacBurney Gates

The Whistling Waddy--Donald Bayne Hobart

Deerslayer—James Fenimore Cooper

Riders of the Purple Sage—Zane Grey (author of the next four titles)

Desert Gold

Thunder Mountain

The Mysterious Rider

Man of the Forest

The Crossing—Winston Churchill

Marjorie Daw—Thomas Bailey Aldrich

The Black Hunter—James Oliver Curwood

Kazan—James Oliver Curwood

Bob, Son of Battle—Alfred Ollivant

Dick Kent, Fur Trader—Milton Richards

Tarzan of the Apes—Edgar Rice Burroughs (author of the next six titles)

Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar

Tarzan and the Golden Lion

Tarzan at the Earth’s Core

Tarzan and the Lost (World) Empire

Tarzan the Untamed

Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle 

Treasure Island—Robert Louis Stevenson

The Wonderful War (The Saint)—Leslie Charteris

The Monk and the Hangman’s Daughter—Ambrose Bierce

The Shadow Man—Edgar Wallace (author of the next eleven titles)

Red Aces

The Colossus

The Terror Keep

The Devil Man

The Green Ribbon

The Mystery of the Frightened Lady

The Fellowship of the Frog

India-Rubber Men

The Fourth Plague

The Black

The Ringer

The Flying Beast—Walter S. Masterman

The Greek Coffin Mystery—Ellery Queen (author of the next two titles)

The Egyptian Cross Mystery

The Dutch Shoe Mystery

The Kennel Murder Case—S.S.Van Dine (author of the next three titles)

The Greene Murder Case

The Bishop Murder Case

The Scarab Murder Case

Laughing Death—Walter C. Brown

The Daughter of Fu Manchu—Sax Rohmer

Thirty years ago today

Today, July 25^th, would have been my father’s 97^th birthday had he lived. He passed away thirty years ago, in March 1985. There is not a day goes by that I don’t think about him or my mother, who passed away in March 2001. I always remember my father’s birthday now, because my cousin Karen is born on the same day; when we were children, it was the opposite way around—I remembered her birthday when my dad’s birthday rolled around.

Thirty years. The passage of time. I remember my father and my mother in ways I never knew existed when I was younger, because I could not imagine them gone at that time. My father was 67 years old when he died; that’s young. They are both a part of me; I need only scratch the surface of my heart, mind and soul and they are there, waiting to talk to me.

My parents married on July 9^th, 1955, sixty years ago. Their thirtieth wedding anniversary was within reach when my father passed away. It seems like a short amount of time for them to be married when I look back now (my husband and are nearing twenty-five years married), but they had married later in life and became parents in their late thirties. I was remembering one of the things we children used to do for my parents when their wedding anniversary came around each year. We would buy a box of M&M candies, vanilla ice cream and cantaloupe, cut the cantaloupe in half, scoop out the seeds, and fill each half with ice cream and M&Ms. Our anniversary gift to them, at least for three or four years. The last thing my father probably needed was to eat ice cream full of saturated fats given his health problems, but he ate it because we made it for them. That was the kind of dad he was. As I peruse his reading list and write about it for my blog, I feel my father’s presence in my life. I welcome those memories and feelings.

My father’s reading list prior to 1936

As promised, I will continue to post the lists of books my father read during his life. He was a prolific reader already during his childhood and teenage years. In 1936, when he was eighteen years old, he started to annotate his reading list according to the specific year that he read a particular book. My post today will include some of the books he read prior to 1936. The first one on his list was Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz. Here are the first fifty books he recorded as read, so many of them typical of a young boy’s life…….

Quo Vadis—Henryk Sienkiewicz

Fortitude—Hugh Walpole

Robinson Crusoe—Daniel Defoe

Tom Brown’s Schooldays—Thomas Hughes

The Black Arrow—Robert Louis Stevenson

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer—Mark Twain

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—Mark Twain

Call of the Wild—Jack London

The Man without a Country—Edward Everett Hale

Men of Iron—Howard Pyle

Daddy Long Legs—Jean Webster

The Riflemen of the Ohio—Joseph A. Altsheler (also author of the next thirteen books)

The Young Trailers

The Forest Runners

The Free Rangers

The Scouts of the Valley

The Border Watch

The Sun of Saratoga

The Horsemen of the Plains

The Last of the Chiefs

Shadow of the North

Sun of Quebec

The Guns of Shiloh

The Tree of Appomattox

Apache Gold

The Arkansas Bear—Albert Bigelow Paine

Just So Stories—Rudyard Kipling

Story of a Bad Boy—Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Story of Roland—James Baldwin

Robin Hood and His Merry Men—John Finnemore

The Sky Pilot—Ralph Connor

Boy’s Life of Edison—William H. Meadowcraft

The Tragedy of the Italia—Davide Guidici

Uncle Tom’s Cabin—Harriet Beecher Stowe

Scouting with Daniel Boone—Everett T. Tomlinson

The Palm of the Hot Hand—King Phillips

Pinocchio—Carlo Collodi

Jim Davis—John Masefield

The Black Buccaneer—Stephen W. Meader

Boots and Saddles—E.B. Custer

The Perfect Tribute—M.R.S. Andrews

Twice Told Tales—Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Spy—James Fenimore Cooper

The Black Glove—Geraldine Gordon Salmon

The Gold Bug—Edgar Allan Poe

The Pit and the Pendulum—Edgar Allan Poe

The Other Wise Man—Henry Van Dyke

The Crisis—Winston Churchill

Richard Carvel—Winston Churchill

The Mansion—Henry Van Dyke

My father's reading list from 1938

As promised, a list of some of the many books that my father read in his lifetime. His book choices continue to inspire me; I know they will do so for many years to come. In 1938, when he was twenty years old, he started to note the specific year in which he read the books he listed. These are the books he read during that year.

• The Wind from the Mountains                                   Trygve Gulbranssen
• The Deserted Village and Other Poems                    Oliver Goldsmith
• And So—Victoria                                                       Vaughan Wilkins
• American Dream                                                         Michael Foster
• The Outward Room                                                     Miller Brand
• Anna Karenina                                                             Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
• War and Peace                                                             Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
• The Turning Wheels                                                    Stuart Cloete
• Invasion                                                                       Maxence Van der Meersch
• Northwest Passage                                                       Kenneth Roberts
• Rogue Herries                                                              Hugh Walpole
• The Stars Look Down                                                  Albert Joseph Cronin
• The Thing: Why I Am a Catholic                                Gilbert Keith Chesterton
• Inheritance                                                                    Phyllis Bentley
• Why Rome                                                                   Selden Peabody Delany
• The Sisters                                                                    Myron Brinig
• Judith Paris                                                                   Hugh Walpole
• The Fortress                                                                  Hugh Walpole
• Vanessa                                                                         Hugh Walpole
• The Ordinary Difficulties of Everyday People            John Rathbone Oliver
• D’Annunzio                                                                  Tommaso Antongini
• Parnassus On Wheels                                                   Christopher Morley
• The Haunted Bookshop                                                Christopher Morley
• The Wall                                                                       Mary Roberts Rinehart
• The Citadel                                                                   Albert Joseph Cronin
• Jamaica Inn                                                                   Daphne du Maurier
• The Rains Came                                                            Louis Bromfield
• Opera, Front and Back                                                  H. Howard Taubman
• Wolf Solent                                                                   John Cowper Powys
• Dawn In Lyonesse                                                         Mary Ellen Chase
• Appreciation                                                                  William Lyon Phelps
• Tess of the D’Urbervilles                                              Thomas Hardy
• To Have and Have Not                                                  Ernest Hemingway
• More of My Life                                                            Andrea Majocchi, MD   
• For the Honor of the School                                          Ralph Henry Barbour
• Murders in the Rue Morgue                                          Edgar Allan Poe
• The Telltale Heart                                                         Edgar Allan Poe
• Doctor Bradley Remembers                                          Francis Brett Young
• Green Mansions                                                            William Henry Hudson
• Wuthering Heights                                                        Emily Bronte     

Reading lists and a love of books

My father was an avid reader from the time he was a young child. He kept a list of the books that he had read, and they were not few. The first book on his list was Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero by the Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz; it was first published in 1895 in Poland as a serialized novel in several Polish newspapers. In 1896, it came out in book form and was subsequently translated into more than fifty languages (according to Wikipedia). My father would have read it in English since he did not speak Polish (he did however speak Italian, and studied Latin and Greek as well). He did not annotate his book lists, so I don’t know why he started with Quo Vadis; perhaps his father suggested this book to him. This was followed by Fortitude: Being a True and Faithful Account of the Education of an Adventurer by Hugh Walpole, published in 1913. And so on, until the last book that he read shortly before his death in 1985, which was Cal by Bernard MacLaverty, which came out in 1983. By the time he died, he had read close to a thousand books. It was not clear from his book lists when he started to keep them, but I’m guessing he started when he was around twelve years old. Since he was sixty-seven years old when he died, that means that in the space of fifty-five years of reading, he read about seventeen books per year on average. Many of the books were loaned from the Warner Public Library in Tarrytown; both my parents were frequent users of the library.

It struck me while going through my father’s book lists that he was already interested in organizing and systematizing books as a child, in preparation for his career as a librarian. He did not know that he was to become a librarian when he was twelve years old, but the signs were already there when you take a look at his lists.

Both he and my mother loved to read, and they instilled their love of books in us children. My mother did not keep extensive lists of the books she read like my father did, but both of them encouraged us to do so. So I have done so, all these years. I started keeping a list when I was around twelve years old, like my father. The first book on my list is The Hundred and One Dalmations by Dodie Smith, which was first published in 1956.

My father read widely—fiction, non-fiction, biographies, history, Catholic literature, and children’s literature. He shared what he read with me especially, since I would often sit at the dinner table with him in the evenings after dinner and discuss what he and I were reading. As I got older, we would often read the same book, sometimes at the same time, more often right after the other person had read it. We suggested books for each other; my father would cut out book reviews from the newspaper to share with me, or we would find a few books of interest in the weekly supplement The NY Times Book Review. As I get older, it strikes me that growing up in my family was a special experience. I learned to love books and to love discussing them. Nothing makes me happier than when I can sit and discuss the book I’m reading or have read with someone (I feel the same about movies). Some people would call it doing ‘post-mortems’ and don’t like to do this. In fact, most people I know don’t discuss the books they read. I respect that. We all have our own reasons for why we read and for reading the books we read. As long as the world continues to read, we’ll keep evolving and growing as human beings. That’s what is most important. But I’m glad I have my father’s reading lists, because as I peruse them, I see that we have a lot of the same tastes in literature. And that makes me feel close to him. In a future post, I will list some of the books he read as a teenager and young adult, and will include some of my own.  

Rest in peace, Ray

Raymond C. De Angelis, of Riverdale NY, passed away suddenly on February 1st. He was fifty-four years old. He was born in Tarrytown NY and attended Transfiguration School and Sleepy Hollow High School. He graduated from Fordham University in 1982 with a B.A. degree in History and Economics. He is survived by his wife Elizabeth and two children, Tamar and Eli. Both Mr. De Angelis and his wife were co-founders of Adventure Center, Journeys of Wonder, Inc., a nonprofit creative learning center for children in Riverdale NY. Prior to this, he worked in the insurance field for many years. He was a dedicated triathlon participant in his younger years, as well as an avid fisherman; he enjoyed hiking and the outdoors and was very supportive of environmental conservation issues. He will be remembered as a loving father to his two children and as a supportive husband and brother.
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When I was in New York during this sad time, I had a free day, and walked around Rockwood Hall State Park, on the Hudson River. This was a place that we used to frequent as teenagers, and was one of the many places where my brother enjoyed walking around. He also enjoyed walking around the Croton Reservoir, Rockefeller State Park, Wave Hill, and other parks and nature preserves. He was eager to show his children and other children the wonders of nature, just as he had discovered them as a boy fishing around the Tarrytown Lakes. Rockwood Park was full of snow on the day that I was there, but the day was beautiful and sunny, and I 'buried' my brother in spirit in this beautiful place. Rest in peace, my brother Raymond.

Remembering my mother on her birthday

Had my mother still been alive, today would have been her 94th birthday. Unfortunately, she passed away in 2001. The cause of death was sepsis, which is not a very uncommon cause of death among elderly people for reasons that are not well-known. My mother had been in very good health until she neared her 78^th year; I can recall only two times in her entire adult life when she was hospitalized, once for a viral infection in her middle ear, and the other for an operation to remove an inflamed appendix. When she was in her late seventies, she began to have problems with her back. She was eventually diagnosed with osteoarthritis of the spine, again, not an unexpected diagnosis for many of the elderly. Having been a great walker for most of her life, my guess is that she looked ahead and did not like what she saw—a future with limited opportunities for walking, perhaps the use of a wheelchair and/or walker—in short, a more restricted life than the one to which she was accustomed. She was independent and stubborn; when she was hospitalized initially for medical tests, she was in good spirits and was sure she would be able to return to her old life. Sadly, that was not the case. She ended up at a care center so that she could undergo physical therapy to get her back on her feet again. For some reason, she became quite stubborn (more so than usual) and refused that help. And that refusal was her undoing. Had she worked at her physical therapy, she might still be alive today. All these many years later, I understand that she simply could not accept the idea that she would be dependent upon anyone or anything, and the idea that she was suddenly infirm did not appeal to her. My mother had no patience for being old, for the various small irritations and physical limitations of old age. She was vehement about not giving in to old age. What is surprising is that she did not understand her role in her own recovery, even when it was explained to her; had she taken the reins and insisted upon therapy, had she done what it took to get better, she might still be alive. But she had no personal experience with chronic or long-term illness, even though she had taken care of my father, who had debilitating heart disease, until his death. Taking care of him had not prepared her for suddenly being afflicted herself. Her two brief hospital stays must have convinced her to get out of the hospital and back home as fast as possible. I understand her at the same time that I question her actions during the last few months of her life. But I accept what happened even though I don’t understand completely what happened.

In the intervening years, there have been other illnesses and deaths--family members and friends alike—and I have had a chance to witness first-hand how these people tackled the illnesses that preceded their deaths. Illness does some surprising things to people. Some of them simply accepted their diagnoses and the accompanying conditions, others fought against them. Those who fought were mostly younger or middle-aged people. I also know older people who have done what it takes to get well, who were assertive about getting back on their feet again; interestingly, they are still with us. I've also known older people who did what they had to do to get well, but death took them anyway. Along the way, I've learned that you simply cannot know how you would think or feel if faced with a similar situation. And until you step into the shoes of a person who is ill (with a terminal diagnosis or long-term illness) you have no real idea of what they’re going through. It’s best to be there for them, to help out, to listen, to advise when asked for advice, to offer hope, to be positive, even if we don't always understand their situation or their response to it. Not much more is asked of us. 

On Father’s Day, remembering my father and my mother

There was little in the way of material wealth in the family in which I grew up. My parents were not rich nor were they particularly preoccupied with accumulating wealth in their lifetimes. Sometimes I wish they had been better at financial planning or at saving for retirement, but they weren’t. We had the things we needed, but no more. When times were financially difficult in our family, we felt it. My parents made mistakes in that regard in terms of saving money for uncertain times, and my father would have been the first one to admit that. But by the time he understood that, his health was poor and there was little he could have done to reverse the course of things. We managed, but there was never really enough left over to secure a comfortable future for them when they got older. As fate would have it, my father passed away in his late 60s, leaving my mother alone for what should have been their retirement years spent doing enjoyable things together. But that was not to be.

My parents were preoccupied with other things than money and career—books mostly, during their lives. They loved to read, and they shared their thoughts about what they read with us. My father especially was an avid reader, and he and I would often walk together on summer evenings when I was a teenager and discuss books and life in general. He and my mother also enjoyed classical music and shared that with us as well. They read newspapers and we discussed politics and current events at the dinner table. We did not get together often with extended family, but our friends were always welcome, and in that regard, the door to our house was always open. It never seemed as though we lacked for much, and I did not compare what we had to what our friends had. I was never particularly interested in doing that. It always seemed to me that some people had more money and material things, and some people didn’t. That was just the way life was; I rarely pondered it when I was a child or teenager. But the difficult times in our family, e.g., when my father was unemployed for nearly two years and his subsequent gradual decline in health, taught me to be independent and to not rely on other to support me financially. So the hard times did have an influence on my adult career choices, and I do feel that I made the right decisions when it came to pursuing a career. 

On Father’s Day, I cannot remember my father without remembering my mother, who passed away sixteen years after he did. During her life, my mother did what she needed to do for herself and for my father; she did it without much fuss or talk. She was a doer, not a talker. She took good care of my father and of us, but his cardiovascular disease had its roots already in his late teens as a result of a ruptured appendix that nearly killed him. His illness manifested itself in his early 50s, with his first heart attack at the age of 52. In response to this, my mother prepared low-fat meals which we all ate. We mostly ate lean baked chicken, lean cuts of beef, and fish. Sometimes she would make pork chops or tuna casserole. There were never heavy cream sauces or gravies to accompany the meats or fish. We rarely ate mayonnaise, ice cream or drank whole milk. My parents would drive to the local farm stands during the summer to stock up on fruits and vegetables; that was an important part of summer meals. My mother ate very little in the way of dessert and rarely snacked on junk food and there was not much of either one in our house. She did buy cookies and cupcakes for us to eat as snacks after school when we were children, but they were regulated—we were allowed one or two and that was all. We were not allowed to raid the refrigerator at will; the refrigerator was off limits once we had eaten our snacks. In that way, she controlled the amount of food we put into ourselves. Dessert after dinner on weeknights might be Jell-o with fruit, or a few cookies. On Sundays, we usually had a lemon sponge cake from the local bakery for dessert; she also made a great lemon cake drizzled with lemon juice. When I think back to the way she ate, I realize that she ate a bit of everything, but she did so in moderation. She never overate; she never overdid anything when it came to food. She was more the type to make sure that others were full before she was. But that could also have been her way of ensuring that she did not overeat. She drank a lot of water, loved her black tea, and drank a couple of cups of coffee per day. Breakfast for her was toast and tea. When she and I would go out to eat (when she was in her 70s), we usually found the local diner and ordered ourselves grilled cheese sandwiches with cole slaw on the side and a cup of tea. That was enough for the both of us.

My mother was a great walker for most of her life. She didn’t learn to drive until she was around 65 years old, and even then, when she got her license, she drove for a couple of years around town, and then gave up driving and sold her car. We often wondered why she did that; I think it was because she missed walking around town. She understood that she was onto something by walking. She didn’t turn down the offer of a ride if she had a lot of groceries to shop for, especially as she got older. But she looked forward to getting outside to walk, in all types of weather. Rain never bothered her, ditto for snow. She was in good shape for most of her life, rarely sick, not overweight (she was slender)—and she didn’t look her age. She was proud of that. When I look back at what mattered to her in the way of her personal health, I know now that my mother was interested in taking care of herself long before it became trendy to do so. She never announced it with fanfare; she was not an ardent missionary for the cause nor did she nag others to ‘see it her way’. She just did it. She would just say she was going to the supermarket to pick up a few items, and that was one of her several walks for the day. Sometimes we joined her, sometimes not. It didn’t matter to her if she walked alone; she enjoyed it. All these years later, I realize she was on the right track when it came to eating and taking care of herself. My mother was a quiet instigator of change. I appreciate her simple wisdom and ways of doing things, more and more as I get older. Her legacy lives on in the way I approach my life and in my approach to getting older. I wish my parents had lived longer. I got to know each of them first together, as my parents, and then separately as I spent time with each of them individually. I am grateful for the time I was able to spend with each of them.