Connections

I've had a busy evening of chatting with a few friends online. OK, more than just a few. This evening I took part in a "Deck-date" with Crystal Chappell on Twitter. She calls it that because, like many of us, she uses Tweetdeck. She sets a time and lets everybody know she will be on Twitter and ready to chat. I can only imagine how fast the tweets must fly by as hundreds of fans start typing all at once. And she replies to as many as she can, answering whatever questions are thrown at her. I love that she wants to connect directly to her fans.


I signed into Facebook briefly this evening - I think I've been avoiding it, afraid I'll see the dreaded new Timeline format I haven't bothered to learn about yet. But I like to check and see what's new with family and friends whether I take the time to post something new myself or not. Tonight I was surprised to see that Jill Lorie Hurst was on Facebook, too, so we had a quick chat. She held me accountable for my comment on my previous blog about writing something new every day and asked if I'd posted a new blog yet. So here I am. She is a wonderfully effective encourager and her belief in me has had a much greater impact on me than she realizes. And yes, Jill, I will write that book. Eventually.


Jill and I connected on Twitter and Facebook long before we met in person when my husband and I took our daughter to New York City for her 18th birthday and Jill spent the day with us. Today I was on Twitter discussing plans for another trip to NYC. Again I'll be meeting people I've been chatting with daily for at least a year or two. I'm always amazed at the way these friendships develop with people from all over the world.


It's been over two years since I blogged about the importance of these online friendships when I wrote about Cathie Wagner. During a time of grief friends who had never met face to face could offer each other support and comfort any time of the day or night on Twitter. Just a quick comment or two and the knowledge that someone else is there to help carry our load can help us feel a little less alone in our struggles and give us a little hope.


Tonight, I saw this play out on Twitter again. I noticed that one of my friends hadn't shown up in our usual Saturday night chat for Crystal Chappell's fan club and after the chat was over I found out why. My friend's father had passed away today. As soon as she shared the news I saw our friends, one after another, offering their condolences, prayers and words of comfort. I prayed that she would feel all the love and know that we're here for her if there's anything we can do. I'm sure she has friends and family in her life to support her, as I did when my mother passed away. But how well I recall every word of encouragement I received from my online friends during my own time of grief. 


I know some people think that connecting through social media actually makes us more disconnected from real life relationships. But I think it's like any long distance communication. It is what we make it. 


During the last couple of years of my mother's life I called her frequently. We wouldn't have a long conversation because it tired her to talk and made her start coughing. But I could talk with her a little about things we both enjoyed on TV or ask her a question or two about things only she remembered. I tried to always give her a little laugh or at least make her smile since I couldn't be there to give her a hug. 


In these conversations with my mother we said what we really wanted to say, which we didn't always do in person. My mother had always a very busy lady. If I wanted to talk to her about something I often had to follow her around the house while she was doing some chore or other and we were frequently interrupted, either by someone else or by our own random thoughts. We talked about what to have for supper and the latest sale at the mall and whether or not the plants needed watering instead of saying "I've missed you", "You look beautiful today", "I'm proud of you". But when I called her during those last couple of years, I said what I wanted to say and she focused on what I was saying and we connected in a different way. We made it count.


Twitter and Facebook are just tools of communication. It's up to us to decide how to use them.


I hope I always use them to really connect to my world. 


I hope I make a difference.

Moms and Weddings, Part Two

She's married.

I'm a mother-in-law.

I have a son-in-law.

I also have a house full of leftover food, reception decorations, wedding gifts and a hard drive full of photos waiting to be edited and shared.

It happens so fast. And like Liza Minelli's song, when it all comes true just the way you planned, it's a quiet thing.* Her smile as an infant, a toddler and every age along the way flashed through my mind along with every wish I'd ever had for her. And they all came true in that moment.

I did not take pictures during the ceremony itself, did not even have my camera with me then since I'd promised my daughter I would simply be the Mother Of The Bride. At times I have to choose whether to be a participant or an observer when do I have my camera with me and I confess I slipped into observer mode for a while during the reception.

But as I looked around the room at my brother and sister, Aunt Becky, nieces, nephews, cousins and all my extended family gathered there, I had to save the moment.

The last time so many of us had been together was for my mother's memorial service and I wondered then how well we would stay in touch with each other since Mom had been our communications hub, relaying the news from one corner of the family to another. While weeks and months have passed between emails and phone calls and an occasional birthday gets missed, we do love and enjoy each other and have stayed in touch pretty well. My sister, aunt and sister-in-law hosted a delightful bridesmaid's luncheon for my daughter the day before the wedding, filled with laughter and hugs. Then they showed up the next day ready to pitch in and help make this DIY wedding everything Becky and Andy hoped it would be.

I love my family.

I told my sister that it was just as well that my mother wasn't around for this one, though.  Mom liked to have all the details arranged well in advance whether she was planning a Sunday School lesson or a wedding. My daughter, Becky, is much more spontaneous. While some things had been prepared well in advance, other elements came together nicely the day before with assignments handed out to relatives and friends who were eager to help, as she knew they would be. That would have driven my mother batty!

But it gave us the opportunity to be participants

instead of just observers

To give something of ourselves to bring joy to Becky and Andy

who have given so much joy to us

To get to know each other

on all sides of this growing family

as we worked together to make memories that would last a lifetime.

*If you aren't familiar with the song, here's one of my favorite versions of it.

My Mother and the Mavericks

My mother passed away on May 28, 2006 after suffering for years with a chronic lung disease. We had a beautiful memorial service for her, which she had planned herself, and shared memories and hugs and tears with family and friends at a reception afterward.

As I was visiting with one of my old friends from grade school during the reception, she invited me to attend the Mavericks game with her that night. A season ticket holder, Ana never missed a home game, and this one was Game Five of the Western Conference finals.

I wasn't sure that was an appropriate way to spend the evening after my mother's memorial service. But when I mentioned it to my brother and my sister they each looked at me, their eyes wide with excitement and said, "GO!" We'd already had time with all the visiting relatives the day before and everyone assured me that my mother would approve. So I accepted Ana's invitation.

Ana picked me up that evening and we went to her favorite sports bar for dinner, watching the first few minutes of the game on the TV screens there since we were running a little late. I told Ana how everyone had said Mom would be delighted that I had a chance to go the game since she had been such a big fan. Ana was astonished to hear that.

"Your mom was a sports fan?!"

Ana knew my mother as a very proper lady who attended church regularly, ran an efficient home and kept everything neat and tidy, even finding time to sew clothes for her daughters. Her childhood memory of my mom was of a sort of June Cleaver for our neighborhood, without the pearls and high heels, sort of a blend of Betty Crocker and Martha Stewart. That was a pretty accurate picture. But I told Ana about my mother's penchant for the old Saturday Night Wrestling shows which she watched on a little black & white TV throughout all three of her pregnancies, a craving that was probably healthier than mine for Dutch Chocolate Blue Bell ice cream.

Mom was a big fan of the Texas Rangers, the Dallas Cowboys and the Dallas Mavericks. She never missed a game on TV, making sure somebody looked up the time and the channel for her when she was bedridden so she wouldn't miss a minute. She'd yell at the players on TV when they were losing and cheer when they were winning. I was sure she was smiling down on me. I became more certain as the evening wore on.

We left the restaurant sometime during the first quarter and made our way through a brief rain shower across downtown to the arena. As the rain let up and the evening sun broke through we saw a double rainbow, from one end to the other, perfectly framing the Dallas skyline. It was so beautiful it took our breath away and Ana turned to me and said, "Donna! It's your mother!"

When we got to the arena, Ana approached the closest parking lot, telling me she never found an open space there and since we were running late it was probably chained off by now anyway. But the lot was open and we found a parking space waiting for us, not far from the entrance to the arena. Again, Ana said, "Donna! It's your mother!"

The Mavericks had been trailing so far in this game against the Phoenix Suns but as we found our seats, they scored and took the lead. And Ana said, "Donna! It's your MOTHER!!" She kept repeating that phrase as Dirk Nowitzki went on to score a total of 50 points during that game, 22 of them in the fourth quarter and the Mavericks won the game 117 - 101.

And it didn't stop then. On our way to the car, Ana stopped to buy a t-shirt. She was hoping to find one particular design in a certain size and was pretty sure they'd be sold out. But they had it in stock. Of course they did. She gave my mom credit for that one, too.

The next morning at breakfast I told my family the story of my mother and the Dallas Mavericks. At first they giggled a bit, but then they sat quietly as, one by one, I related the events of the night before.

They agreed with Ana.

"It was your mother."

Kim Crow Adams, Ana Saldana and me at the reception after my mother's memorial service

Must Read for Parents Whose Kids Have Ipods

I've got a friend with a new blog and if you've got a kid with an ipod...heck, even if you don't...you really ought to read this:

http://madstepmother.blogspot.com/2009/02/ipods-are-not-essential-for-life-unless.html

For you it may be a Nintendo DS or a another electronic device of some sort, but I'm sure every parent knows how this feels!

My Mom's Thanksgiving

I think I've mentioned before in this blog that my mother out-Martha Stewart-ed Martha Stewart long before anybody ever heard that name. She was an artist and her home was her canvas. (I'm not sure if her kids were her masterpieces or if we were the dollops of paint splattered along the way, but that sounds like another blog entry!)

While my firstborn was home from college for Thanksgiving we sifted through a pile of old snapshots from her childhood and I found a few that I just had to share with you tonight, before the day gets away from us.

This is the centerpiece on my mother's dining room table one Thanksgiving Day years ago. Nothing special, mind you, just something she'd put out when the season was right whether company was coming or not. Being the snap-happy photographer that I am, I had to preserve it for posterity. I'm glad I did.

Christmas Packages and Choir Dolls

For the past couple of days I've been gathering everything that must be mailed to members of my extended family for Christmas. Since I live in Maryland and most everybody else lives in Texas, that's a lot of people. Now, my thing isn't about spending a lot of money and shopping for the next big thing. Mainly because I don't have a lot money...never have...never expect to. Necessity is the mother of invention, so they say. In my family, make that poverty is the mother of creativity!

I don't know if my mother made these because of a lack of money for buying decorations or if it was just a burst of creativity. I say a burst because with my mom we saw a steady stream of creativity and talent every day of our lives. But I remember when she made these choir dolls by folding magazines, spray painting them and adding a few other details. They're made with a copy of Look magazine, one Good Housekeeping and a TV Guide. My dad drew the faces and cut them out. I helped by staying out of the way!

These choir dolls were put on display in a place of honor atop the piano every year at Christmastime until they practically fell apart. I still have these original dolls. One year I started to make new bodies for them, finding current magazines of the appropriate sizes and I made an interesting discovery. Today's magazines have at least four times the amount of pages that magazines had in the early sixties! If I try that again I'll have to do it with with much less than a whole magazine! I'll get to it someday. In the meantime, here's a picture of the originals:

Just Like Mom? Not Hardly!

My mom was a home ec major so there are a lot of things she did that I'll never do!

Some of it is because of technology...I don't have to iron everything because of perma-press fabrics, for example.

Some of it is because I overloaded on it while I was kid. I had so many Toni home perms and restless nights on sponge rollers and pin-curls that I've always sworn I would never get between my daughters and their hair. When my daughter dyed her hair hot pink I secretly admired her sense of adventure, knowing that if I'd tried something like that when I was a teen-ager my mother would have keeled over!

One thing my mother always did that I will never do is to keep a list of the menus for the evening meals of the week. She'd always cook a nice meal, everything in serving dishes on a neatly set table...with a centerpiece, no less...every night of the week (except for Wednesdays, when we had supper at the church). And we always knew what we were having every night because we'd check the notepad in the drawer next to the refrigerator. Meat, 2 veggies, bread, dessert...all planned not only for nutritional value but also according to texture and color. No, I'm not kidding...home ec major, remember? When I got to the meal-planning unit in my junior high home ec class, I told my group, "Oh, I've got this one covered!" She also had another notepad with a grocery list in progress, with items listed according to their sections in the grocery store...dairy, produce, meats, etc. She'd add to it during the week as she noticed things we needed, then take it with her when it was time to shop. Not a bad system, huh?

These days our schedule is pretty unpredictable...I tell my friends we try to plan things five minutes in advance! There's no way I could even know who will be home for dinner, much less plan what to fix every night. Not that I'm the one who does the cooking...my husband is the chef in our family!

Well, I just returned from a trip back home to Dallas to help my sister go through my parents' house and decide what to do with all the stuff. My mom died about a year and a half ago and my dad recently remarried and moved to another town with his new bride and he wants to sell the house. As we were going through the things in the kitchen, just for grins I checked that drawer next to the refrigerator...and there they were. Two notepads, one for meals, one for groceries. I have to say it really stopped me in my tracks, seeing my mother's handwriting there and realizing they'd been there for all the years my mom had been housebound and later, bedridden, before her death from a chronic lung disease. The notepad with the meal plans on it was dated "Dec. 13, 1999". Here's a picture: