What Kind Of Mileage Didja Get?

This Saturday, my grandfather will celebrate his 100^th birthday.  One hundred years on this earth – learning, growing, teaching, laughing, crying, living – making it a better place every step of the way.  One hundred years of doing his job as a big-hearted, loving human being.

He probably doesn’t see it that way.  His JOB, he would tell you, was to put his whole self into the hard labor that would provide the money to support his family.  If one paycheck wasn’t enough, he’d get another.  WORK is what makes a man.  Hard work puts food on a table and a roof over your head.  Hard work makes you strong and brings respect.  Hard work is the most important thing.  His job as a father, he would tell you, was to be the rigid authoritarian leader who prepared his children and grandchildren for the hard work that awaits them.  That’s the box that he put himself in and that’s his point of view.

I couldn’t disagree with him more.  That’s not what his century has been about.  Certainly, 1913 was a time of hard work.  He was born into a farm family, doing back-breaking work from the moment he could walk.   He had to leave school early (family history is hazy, but sometime around 6^th grade) because his father was sick and someone had to step up and do the work.  He worked and worked and worked, because that’s what needed to be done and, as the oldest boy, his mother and 8 siblings were counting on him.  Work came before everything else and, in his view; a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay is the most success he’s ever had.  But he’s wrong about that.

My grandfather has always been a humble man.  Humility is a virtue, to be sure, but he’s never given himself credit for the REAL work he’s done.  His 100 years have definitely been about hard work.  There’s no denying that.  But even more than that, his 100 years have been about Love.  First and foremost, even though he’d never admit it, Love has been front and center and the Love has always been bigger than the Work.

The hard work he did as a boy was an expression of love and loyalty to his parents and his younger brothers and sisters.  Into adulthood, even with his own growing family, he continued to keep those siblings under his wings and make sure they were OK.  As long as he was still able to drive himself, he met his brother weekly for coffee for a check-in.  Now, he needs people to care for him but he still has one little sister left and my personal belief is that he will not depart this earth until he’s seen her properly to the gate.  I may be wrong about that, but he’s never walked away from a responsibility or commitment before and I doubt he’ll start now.

As a young man, he fell under the spell of his future bride at a barn dance and he worked, worked, worked to earn her heart.  Then he worked, worked, worked to provide for her and the family they created together.  By example – and by expectation – he taught those children how to work hard, too.

When I think of my grandfather and conjure his image in my mind, he is a giant man in dark blue work pants, steel toed work shoes and a collared shirt because this is the uniform of his life.  But I also see the crinkle at the corner of his eyes, and the sparkle that lives behind them.  I see the slight upturn at the corner of his mouth that is always there.  Because those things show the whole picture.  He believes in the importance of Hard Work and is proud of his lifetime of labor.  What he’ll never admit to is that he should be more proud of his Heart Work.

As a typical Midwestern blue collar man of his era, he does not easily express his feelings in words or say “I love you”.  But he says it in so many other ways.  When a giant, calloused hand reaches across the couch cushion to tickle a baby’s foot, he’s said it.  When he teaches a grandson how to make his special summer sausage, he’s said it. When, after a long day helping him cut grass, he lets you sit on a bar stool at the tavern and order a sodie, he’s said it.  When his granddaughter (me) asks him to walk her down the aisle and he gets cortisone shots in his hard-work-damaged knees to make sure he’ll be able to, he’s said it.  And when he’s asking questions that seem mundane and impersonal, believe it or not, what he’s really doing is saying “I love you”.

Because he didn’t get the education he’d have liked, he never gave himself credit for his own intelligence.  He could work numbers at lightning speed in his head and had brilliant ideas to make work easier – not just for himself, but for others.   Numbers have meaning to him and they represent something tangible.

Over the years, all of his children and grandchildren have been subjected to the inquisition during every visit.  When he asks about your job, he’s not asking if you’re happy or fulfilled.  He’s asking how much you get paid.  If you rattle off an annual salary, he will calculate that down to an hourly rate in the blink of an eye.  Because that’s important to him and gives him a measure of your work.  After every long car trip, as soon as the hellos and handshakes are out of the way, Grandpa will inevitably ask “What kind of mileage did you get?”  Because that matters and you’d better be prepared with an answer.  We never started a trip home without making note of our odometer reading because we knew we’d have to calculate our gas mileage before we pulled in the driveway.

It’s become a bit of a family joke among my siblings.  We greet each other with big hugs and “What kind of mileage didja get, eh?” in our best Grandpa voice and we know that it means “I love you and I’m happy to see you.” because we understand that’s what he was saying to us all along.

My grandfather was an engine guy.  He liked cars and cared about how they operated.  He taught us all to take care of them and they’d take care of us.  Meanwhile, quietly through his actions, he taught us to take care of people and people would take care of us.  He taught us to never let the gas tank get too low or we’d be stranded.  Meanwhile, he taught us to work and save so we’d be able to keep moving forward.  So yes, he cared about fuel efficiency and he was genuinely curious when he asked about our gas mileage, but I think we all know he was really asking us if we were making the most out of what we have.  “What kind of mileage do you get?” is just another way of saying “I love you and I want you to go as far as you can in life.”

Now, at the end of his century, my big strong grandfather’s engine is wearing down.   All that hard work takes its toll and he’s not likely to ask me about all of my important numbers again.  So let me tell you about his important numbers instead:

• 100 years
• 1 love of his life
• 70 years of marriage
• 7 hardworking, intelligent, caring, generous children
• 39 grandchildren  (also pretty fabulous, if I do say so myself)
• More than 70 (lost count ages ago) great grandchildren
• Countless friends and strangers helped by his generosity

This weekend, when we all gather to celebrate his birthday, we will also be celebrating his successes.  Though he doesn’t see it that way, his Heart Work far outweighs his Hard Work and his engine brought him amazingly far on that tank of gas. 

We all have those times when we feel the need to measure our position in this life.  I hope I will always do as my grandfather and try to get as far as I can with what I have and at the end of the day, instead of asking myself what I achieved, I will remember to ask “What kind of mileage didja get, eh?”

 

 

Can't Doesn't Live Here...

Last week, my 8 year old daughter stood on a stage and sang a song for an audience filled with her church family.  She’s got a lovely voice, can carry a tune and music comes naturally to her.  She did a great job and was met with a standing ovation.  I couldn’t have been more proud of her.

Let’s be honest, I’m her mom.  I’m required by law to say that she did a great job.  The standing ovation came from people who have known her and loved her since the day she was born, so they’re not terribly unbiased, either.  I recognize that there were tempo issues and that she didn’t hit all the notes just right.  I’m not ready to ship her off to Hollywood or to become her Mom-ager. 

Still, I beam with pride.  Not because she’s the best.  Simply because she DID it.  She continues to do it.  She gets on stage – at church, at her dad’s shows, at blues society meetings, and at theater programs – and she just faces the audience and shows them her heart without fear.  It has never occurred to her that not everyone does that.  Not only do they not have the opportunity, they flat out don’t have the nerve.  She truly has no understanding that the very idea of what she does is terrifying to so many people.  I have no intention of telling her.

So often in our lives we’ve been told “You can’t do that!”  Even if we don’t know we’re listening, we absorb the Can’t.  Can’t oozes its way in and settles in our cells, just resting there quietly until we are most vulnerable against a Can’t Attack.

We don’t just hear Can’t from outside.  The loudest and meanest Can’ts come from within.  It’s common and normal to tell yourself that you Can’t Do, Can’t Afford, Can’t Reach, Can’t Bear, Can’t Succeed – not because you know it to be fact, but because somewhere along the line you were told that you Can’t.

What if no one ever told you “You Can’t”?  The idea that you Can’t would never enter your mind.  My uncle survived (and thrived) after a terrible accident because, as he said “No one told ME I was gonna die”.  Can’t never entered his mind.  My mother bent rules to get things done because even if someone told her she couldn’t, she thumbed her nose at Can’t.  My daughter walks on stage, looks her audience in the eyes, and takes control because she has no reason to think she Can’t.  Her dad does it every day.  Sometimes her mom gets on stage and talks to people.  Why should she think there’s a reason SHE can’t?

I’ve always been aware of the Can’ts.  More than once, I’ve driven a long way to a place only to find that I didn’t have the courage to go inside.  Anxiety is fueled by the Can’ts.  Fear of Failure is Can’ts accomplice.  Try is Can'ts arch enemy.  Seeing that, I have pulled it together enough to ignore Can’t and forge ahead.  It’s never easy, but some of my greatest victories have come after kicking Can’t to the curb.

While I do my best to set the example that things will not just magically happen just because she wants them to, I also tell her that she CAN work to make anything happen.  She’s not fearless.  But she believes in herself.  And while she’s kicking Can’ts ass, her little sister is watching, absorbing, believing that she CAN, too.  Maybe one day, they’ll get a Grammy, an Oscar or the Nobel Peace Prize.  Or maybe they’ll live a modestly happy life doing something out of the spotlight.  They know they can and I have no doubt about it.

So, aside from all of the usual delight a mom should feel when a child makes a roomful of people smile, I continue to be overwhelmed with pride over the vision and strength that these two little beings have as they hold up their heads and tell the world “Can’t doesn’t LIVE here!”

Meet you at the finish line...

The other day, my husband and I met a man who was wearing a dozen track and field medals around his neck.  He earned them in Special Olympics events and was deservedly proud.  We praised him for his achievement and he went on about his day. 

Such an accomplishment always gets my attention because it represents something that I just absolutely do not have:  ambition.  I have no drive.  I have no competitive streak.  Therefore, I have no medals.  I have no trophies.  And I’m totally OK with that.

Wait, I take that back.  I did receive a trophy once!  For bookkeeping during a fourth grade tetherball tournament.  Mr. Schenke was probably trying to foster some sense of triumph with that.  But it really just fostered embarrassment.  I didn’t do anything to merit a trophy so it didn’t feel right to get one.

I was an active kid.  I rode my bike all day long.  I climbed trees and hiked.  I built things and jumped in leaves.  In the summer, I swam and rowed canoes or floated down rivers in innertubes.  None of those things brought any reward other than fun and adventure.  The sure-fire way to ruin my enjoyment was to throw a ball into the mix or to suggest a contest of any sort.

I was a pretty good student.  But I failed gym.  A lot.  I was the last picked for every team – for good reason.  I didn’t even try and everyone knew it.  Every kid knew that throwing a ball my way would only mean that I would step aside and let it drop.  No one was going to win anything with me on the team.  Looking back, I see that the only gym class activities that ever appealed to me were solitary endeavors like archery and weight lifting.  I never minded hitting a tennis ball against a wall or shooting a ball into a basket, but the moment it became a game with rules and competition, I was finished.

I never ran for the joy of it.  Even as a child.  I never ran on purpose.  For me, there is no joy in it.  As more and more of my friends are jumping in to marathons and charity runs, I understand it less and less.  Maybe one day there will be a 10K stroll on a beach.  I can get behind that.

My missing bloodthirst goes way beyond physical activity.  I also loathe Monopoly and other board games that bring out the worst in people.  Greed doesn’t appeal to me in the real world, I sure can’t fire it up for fake money.  I do love games like Scrabble for the brain challenge, but I couldn’t care less about the score.  Which, I guess, kind of sums me up.  I couldn’t care less about the score.

I did well enough in school with little effort.  I tested well and was in gifted programs, but I just didn’t care about grades.  All of that left me under the radar, I guess, and when the time came to make plans for my future, I had none.  I never had an answer for the old “What do you want to be when you grow up?” question.  I don’t recall any guidance counselor or any teacher urging me towards degrees or a goal.  Maybe it happened and I wasn’t paying attention.

I’m a responsible person.  I knew I had to do something.  But I also knew that I would never be able to do things the traditional way.  I tried, a bit.  I walked conventional paths for a time, but my focus always drifted to the more interesting things OFF the course.

Hopping from rock to rock will get you across the river.  So will following the road with the bridge.  Both options get you to your destination.  The road and the bridge are safe.  Tested and reliable.  Guaranteed to get you there.  The “shortcut” across the river can be dangerous.  You can slip and fall.  You might get hurt.  If you get caught in the current, you’ll definitely get wet and have to scramble back up on a new rock.  You might need to go back to a rock already visited to revise your approach, but once you start crossing the river, it’s much harder to get to the safer bridge so you may as well stick with the rocks.

I certainly know plenty of people who set goals, knew what they wanted, travelled the road with the bridge and are perfectly happy.  And I know many who opted for the road and looked longingly at the river below so they jumped in.  I obviously chose the rocks and the river.  I surely could have used the bridge.  I’m glad I didn’t.  I’m having fun down here on the rocks and I’m still making my way across the river!

So maybe I’m not so different from my medal-wearing, trophy-polishing friends after all.  Their drive and ambition is more visible and clear.  They know what they’re going after and see how they’re going to achieve their goals.  Meanwhile, I may look like I’m wandering aimlessly, but I’m actually achieving my goals with each leap forward.

What do I want to be when I grow up?  Happy.  Loved.  Entertained.  Present.  Oh – wait!  I AM that!  I win!  I’ll pick up my trophy on the other side.

No Need To Save Me A Seat...

This weekend, we spent a few hours in one of the city’s oldest cemeteries.  We were there because my husband’s band was playing at a music festival, it was a beautiful day and any opportunity for my kids to see their dad at work is a good one.

It is a lovely park and I appreciate the history, but I’ve never really understood the appeal of a bunch of headstones and to me, they represent unnecessary obligations.  When a loved one passes, I just don’t think that an expensive rock and the burden of required visits is any kind of way to remember the person or life they lived.

I know, I know.  So much of the way we deal with death is based in religion, culture, or just tradition.  We do what we do because that’s what we’ve always done and so on.  My own spiritual understanding tells me that a body is merely a vehicle and the person I love is not hanging out in that box underground and they continue to reside in my heart so I can communicate with them any time I need to.  Some of my best relationships are with dead folks.

Likewise, some of the best parties I’ve been to have been funerals.  That’s the way it should be, I think.  Laughter, story-telling, irreverence and love.  Of course, I understand sadness, grief and loss.  That’s real and undeniable.  But it’s also just a tiny little blip on the radar screen of life.  The rest should be about living!

So as I was strolling the grounds with my girls and they were climbing on headstones like they were mountains, with popsicle drippings on their clothes, dancing to the music playing behind us, I thought it was a perfect setting for a festival and, based on some of the sentiments carved on those stones, I bet a lot of those souls would have danced, too, if they weren’t busy someplace else.

That’s what they are, I think.  Busy someplace else.  So why do we keep riding the Grief Train?  Some of us get on the train, ride it to the next station and get off in a new place.  Some of us get on the train and just don’t realize we can get off anytime we choose.  Some of us (and we all know someone like this) actually ENJOY the Grief Train.  They get their tickets stamped over and over again and put it in their scrapbook or pin it to their chest like a badge of honor. 

My father was a boxcar hobo on the train.  His life was full of loss.  He thought he could hop on the train unnoticed and just ride along with nothing more than a handkerchief tied to a stick.  He didn’t seem to notice that he may have slipped on quietly, but he was still a passenger and that the longer he rode along, the more loaded that sack became.  He was still carrying baggage and it became heavier by the day.

Here’s the thing about the Grief Train:  the longer you ride it, the heavier your baggage gets.  And while you’re riding the train, you miss out on the Living and the Life that is zipping past the windows as you speed by.

My dad missed a lot of joy because he forgot to hop off at the next station.  In the end, he was prepared.  When we got the call, all of his children came together and found, next to his chair, a business card for the funeral home and a box with all of his important papers.  He wrapped up all of the business for us in a tidy little bow, so all we had to do was celebrate.

And that’s what we did.  We celebrated.  His life.  The nine of us are living, breathing evidence that his life meant something.  Our talents, our hearts, our sense of what’s right – and many of our flaws – are gifts that he gave us.  That is something to give thanks for, not something to grieve.  Over the next few days, we wrote his story for the paper, we threw a party for him at his fire station, we toasted him with cheap beer at his favorite gas station-slash-dive bar (yes, all one place) and we planned his proper send-off.  The one that he wanted, and that went horribly, hilariously wrong.  Which was perfect.

Always a drifter, he had no use for a rock with his name on it.  He wanted some of his ashes scattered in the Gulf, where he spent the last few decades of his life and some in the Rocky Mountains, where his cowboy heart resided.  The question was – how do we make that happen?  No worries, my brother Ken was there – the inspiration behind our family-coined terms, “kenginuity” and “kengineering”.  Of course, any time there is kengineering, hilarity ensues.  We maybe forgot that part.

Florida on January 1^st had some definite advantages for our mission.  The beaches were empty aside from the occasional snowbird or fisherman, so we had privacy.  We also had high tides and strong winds.  And we had to figure out how to get ashes past the waves so we could release them.

The obvious choice would have been a boat.  But we didn’t have one.  On to plan B.  Plan B involved a basket and a fishing rod.  The idea was to go to the beach of dad’s choice, attach the basket with ashes, cast it out past the waves, and cut the line so it could drift out to the great beyond.  We all loaded in the van, laughing about the plan and how funny Dad would find it when Johnny Cash suddenly began singing through the stereo.  Ha!  We knew he was paying attention!

We didn’t have to stand on the beach very long to realize that we’d never get the ashes out far enough.  On to Plan C.  Plan C took us to a fishing pier, with the basket, a BB gun and a bunch of helium balloons.  The idea, to quote Ken (because I have this on video) was to “Tie him to the balloons, let it float away from the pier, then shoot the balloons and dump the sucker.” 

Back to the van, back to the laughter and more Johnny Cash.  We walked out on the pier, nodded to fisherman wondering what the hell these crazy people with the balloons and the gun were up to, and realized (while balloons were beating us in the face) that there was no way we were ever going to win the battle against the wind.  On to Plan D.  Which wasn’t a plan at all.  We simply reached as far beyond the railing as we could, and dumped the ashes into the wind.  Some of him made it into the water.  Some of him made it into our hair and our nostrils.

Back to the van, back to the laughter, back to the Johnny Cash.  Our imperfect burial at sea couldn’t have been more perfect.  As for the other half of him, he made it to Colorado, but he still sits in a box in Ken’s china cabinet.  His wife likes having him there, and I kind of think it’s a good place for him to be.

I can’t speak for my brothers and sisters, but I know I’m glad that my father’s memory isn’t tied to a rock someplace that doesn’t matter.   I think of this whenever my husband sings “No Headstone On My Grave” (as he did there in that cemetery) because the lyrics ring true. When the wind blows a bit of dust in my eye, I remember his send-off and laugh.  When I said goodbye, I told him I’d look for him in my babies’ eyes and that’s where I visit him.  When one of them yodels, I know he’s there.  When I hear “Silent Night”, I know he’s there.  And when I need to talk to him, I do and I know he’s there.  He’s there because he CAN be, in a way that he just wasn’t physically able to be before.

There, on the pier, with ashes flying in our faces, I heard the deep roar of his laughter behind us and I knew that not only did he approve, but that he finally put down his baggage and got off of that damn train.

There’s no doubt that death is a sad fact of life.  When someone we love is no longer there, there’s an empty space left behind.  But it’s only as empty as we let it be.  I choose to fill the space with memories and love. 

As much as I love to travel, I’m in it for the joy so I will not be needing a seat on the Grief Train.  If you got on the train, I understand that the seats can be comfortable, but don’t forget that you can always get off at the next station and you may be surprised to see how far you’ve come.

  

I May Be Scared, But I'm Not Afraid...

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve had to step outside of my comfort zone to do something completely unfamiliar to me.  I was excited, but also wondered if I was really capable of delivering the package that I sold.  Intellectually, I was pretty sure I could do it but, since I’m a fairly normal human being, those niggling doubts were pretty loud.  There was no easing into it, however, so I had to jump in, feet first, and just see what happened.

When the tasks were put in front of me, the Cartoon Me who lives in my head, began to sweat, gulp loudly, with eyes springing out of sockets, while making a Me-shaped exit hole in the wall.  The Real Me, however, remained calm and said “This is a little new for me, so bear with me, and I’ll get it done.  I’m scared, but I’m not afraid.”

Now, when I said that, I got some polite-but-puzzled looks from the people in the room.  That’s OK.  I wasn’t talking to them, anyway.  I was talking to myself and I knew exactly what I meant.  I don’t have a place for Fear in my life, but I welcome Scared.  You can’t learn, move forward or grow without at least a little bit of Scared.

Think about what Scared looks like.  When a kid tells you he’s scared of the dark, his eyes are wide open, he’s looking around, and he’s using all of his senses to take in his surroundings.  When you enter a haunted house, you are carefully watching, listening, feeling your way through the halls, preparing yourself for whatever’s waiting around the corner.  When you rode your bike for the first time, you were scared.  When you jumped off the high dive at the local pool, you were scared.  If you’ve ever picked up your life and moved to a new place, I bet you were scared.  When you sneak up behind someone and they jump, maybe yelp, and announce that you scared them, what happens next?  There’s usually laughter.  Because that’s what’s on the other side of Scared:  Happiness.  Relief.  Fun.  Probably a great story to tell later. 

Fear, on the other hand, shuts down.  Fear hides and runs away.  You’ve heard of “sinking fear”, “paralyzing fear” and “crippling fear”.  Think about what that really means.  Fear prevents growth, prevents learning, prevents happiness.  No, thank you!

Everything worthwhile in my life came with Scared.  Every test.  Every new skill learned. Every hair-brained adventure. Every move.  Every new job.  Meeting and marrying my husband.  Having children (that’s some scary stuff!).  Donating a kidney.  My eyes were open, my heart was unshielded, I was listening, sensing, feeling every step of the way.   Which means Scared was right there with me.

That eye-springing, gulping, wall-crashing Cartoon Me is always with me, too.  But on the outside, I’ve learned how to not let her show.  My family taught me those skills, whether they meant to or not.

 

~My mother taught me to walk like a model.  She had experience on the catwalk and told me to:  stand tall, shoulders back, head up, chin forward, eyes on the path ahead and never drag my feet.  She was probably just telling me how to look like a lady, but what I got out of it is a self-assured stride that is able to take in my surroundings as I keep moving forward.

~My mother also taught me to politely challenge authority and that sometimes it's better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.  What she meant, I believe, is that if your intentions are good, sometimes you just have to do whatever it takes to accomplish your goal despite the rules.  What I got out of it is the ability to assess every situation with "What's the worst that can happen here?"  Often the answer to that question is "Nothing."  The worst that can happen is nothing, but nothing will definitely happen if you don't try.  The key, of course, is intention and if bending a rule brings no harm and feels like the *right* thing to do, then do it.

~My brother taught me how to belong wherever I am.  Wherever you may be, if you act like you’re supposed to be there, no one will ever question that.  I believe he was trying to get me to safely carry valuable music gear through alleys in East St. Louis, but what I got out of it was a confident presence while moving through any new setting.

~Another brother taught me that an untraveled path often brings beautiful rewards.  I know he just wanted someone to tromp through the woods with him when all the preferred siblings were unavailable, but what I got out of it was faith that I would have never known that breath-taking waterfall was there if I hadn’t forged ahead through the poison ivy and briars.

 

None of those lessons left any room at all for fear.  They were all about using all of my six senses to confidently move forward.  Scared keeps moving forward. 

So in the end, I got through the recent challenge.  It WAS scary.  And it was great.  That eye-springing, gulping, wall-crashing Cartoon Me left and the other (yeah, there are many versions) Cartoon Me appeared, blowing her horn doing the second-line parade dance.  Because I was Scared, but I was NEVER Afraid.