Progressive Christian Reflections by Chris Glaser: family

Showing posts with label family. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

A Mother's Work Is Never Done

The hand we held dear.

What Wade’s mom’s passing would mean ambushed me weeks before the fact as I reached around a blind corner of our kitchen cupboards and pulled out an assortment of food containers that had been passed back and forth among family members to carry home leftovers from Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners which Roberta Glenn Miller Jones either hosted or contributed to as a guest.

I realized she would be absent when next we gathered for those holiday meals, and I lost it.

Roberta sold Tupperware in her day, but more recently had a retirement job as one of those Costco ladies offering tasty treats to shoppers. Yet she had another job more central to her character and from which she could never retire: mom. Even death cannot diminish that role. I know, because my mother continues to nurture, support, and teach me two decades after her passing. She lives on in me. As Wade is quick to say, though she died the year before we met, he sees my mom in me.

And I see Roberta in Wade. Even their body types are similar. I’ve laughingly told friends that Roberta is an older version of Wade in drag. And that similarity made me mindful—as we and other family members sat by her bedside in her personal care home, holding her hand, watching her get smaller and smaller as inactivity and inability to eat took its toll—that this could be Wade in the future.

During the stressful weeks prior to her gentle passing in the early morning hours last Tuesday, I’ve been asking our Google speaker to play jazz while I fixed breakfast. I couldn’t quite handle listening to the repeatedly troubling news on NPR, my usual choice, and I like the way jazz often takes the listener to unexpected places.

When asked to construct her obituary for the paper, I learned her middle name for the first time, Glenn, which, combined with her maiden name, Miller, prompted thoughts about the Big Band era of swing jazz. I forgot to ask her older sister, who came for the memorial service Sunday, if that was intentional on their parents’ part or if that was just a family name.

Roberta’s service in the beautiful sanctuary of Mountain Park United Methodist Church in Stone Mountain, GA, was very well attended, surprisingly for an 83-year-old who outlives so many family and friends. Her large Sunday school class, people around her age, attended en masse, as did members of the women’s circles, including her own. Relatives came from all over the country, joining local friends and colleagues of her sons, as well as the owner and manager of her personal care home.

I began looking forward to the service when her delightfully spirited pastor, Rev. Ellynda Lipsey, met with the family to prepare the service and her eulogy and message. She, other members, and the congregation’s Stephen’s Ministry had visited her, sung to her, sent her cards and brought her flowers.

When I first met Roberta as Wade’s “friend,” I knew I was in safe space when I saw a reproduction of John F. Kennedy’s presidential portrait hanging in her living room. That is the one keepsake I requested upon her passing. I had had the same portrait in my bedroom as a teenager. As I write this, I’m wondering who will get her Barack Obama campaign button attached to her wall calendar.

How we really got to know each other was sitting together in hospital waiting rooms during two of Wade’s surgeries. We had each brought reading material, but hardly looked at it as we enjoyed prolonged conversations by which I learned about her youth and Wade’s upbringing in Oaktown, Indiana, which then had a population of 600, a town I will finally visit when we bring her ashes home. She and her husband, Gary, had married in the United Methodist Church there, reared three boys, and finally retired to the Atlanta area when all three sons settled here after college. Though she was known for her reticence, we seemed to have no problem chatting away. Long before, I came to know Gary when I interviewed the family to write his eulogy, at Wade’s request.

With other family members, she happily attended our very small wedding the year the Supreme Court decision legalized same-gender marriage. She gave us two throws that we use when watching something on our flat screen. These sacramentals will continue to keep us warm in the years to come, even as her Tupperware will make the rounds of ours and other households.

Wade selected this poem to be read for his mother’s memorial service:
https://www.idlehearts.com/11307/there-are-angels-god-puts-on-this-earth

Donations in thanksgiving for Roberta Jones may be made to the Stephen’s Ministry of Mountain Park UMC or Homestead Hospice.

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Christmas in 1945 Japan

Mom included this twig with tinsel

from the family Christmas tree

in one of her letters to Dad in Japan.

This post continues and concludes “A Christmas Love Story” begun in my last post, using letters my mom and dad exchanged while he served as part of the U.S. occupation forces in Japan following the end of World War II, as she and their toddler daughter and infant son remained in their home in Los Angeles. (Mom was 30 and Dad was 29, and they shared the same birthday a year apart.) Current service members stationed abroad and their families know firsthand the challenges and heartache involved.

On December 25, 1945, Mom wrote of Christmas, “This has been the loneliest I have ever had. I haven’t cried—I’ve felt too numb. I don’t dare dwell on the fact you are so far away.” Then she describes that morning:

I wish you would have seen Stevie this morning. He was as excited as Sharon. He yelled & almost threw himself out of my arms. And I couldn’t turn him away from the tree & toys. I gave him his roly poly and oh did he love it. Pretty soon I put him back to bed & did he cry. He wanted to stay. He likes his rocking horse. He should—my hand is sore from using the screwdriver on it & I still don’t have the screws tight enough.

Sharon was well pleased with everything. I think the only time she had her skates off was when she ate her meals. I had told her they didn’t have any more skates like Bonnie was going to get unless you had told Santa to bring her some. And you had.

From my dad:

Sen Zaki, Japan

Christmas morning

Merry Christmas, my Darlings! … It was a happy Christmas for many of us new replacements—our mail has at last started coming through. Most all of the guys got stacks of letters yesterday—one guy got 47. Some of us, however, including me, did not get any, but our hopes are high for the next mail call!

“Red” Hunter and Sgt. Engel have been negotiating for two weeks with the necessary people to bring about the party we had last night. Passes to leave camp and a jeep for transportation were granted by our Lieutenant. And about 6:30 last night, Hunter, Engel, Gattis, and I left the camp. The rest of the guys here were settling down to their beer-drinking, which held promise of being a record-breaking celebration, there being a case of beer available per person. Which is one of the reasons we were now headed for Sen Zaki in a jeep. We were going to spend the evening with Johnny and his wife and perhaps a few of their friends.

Briefly, Johnny is a Korean, is the chief of the Korean Association here, is a graduate of Tokyo University, and—this is the important thing—he is a Christian! His father is a minister of a Korean Presbyterian church somewhere in Korea. Johnny speaks English, though, as he says, “English conversation very, very, difficult.”

It was perhaps chiefly Johnny’s idea that some of us gather with him and his wife on Christmas Eve to sing a few carols. And as we four fellows who were there last night think a good deal of Johnny and his efforts in behalf of his miserable people,* the idea got “promoted” in typical Yankee fashion to the point of reality. And although it was very different from any way I ever spent Christmas Eve before, I believe we came nearer to the true meaning of Christmas spirit than had we remained in camp and soaked up our case of beer.

Not that we did not drink some beer. Sgt. Engel and I took our two cases along. It is much better to share two cases of beer with a group of 8 or 9 people than just the two of us. And as it developed, also to my liking and I think to yours, there was a goodly amount of American beer to be left as “presents” to Johnny, whose meager salary does not permit many luxuries of life.

Red had a can of chili that his mother had sent him some time ago. I had several packs of cigarettes that I had got on the boat. Also we had chewing gum, a few chocolate bars. All these and the beer were our contributions to the feast. Also some tangerines. In fact it was practically our party, which was the way we wanted it, because we have so much and those people so little.

We G.I.’s did not eat the chili—for two reasons, one being that we had already eaten a big chow, and the other being that we had forgotten about spoons, and had we tried to eat it with chopsticks like they did we would still be there! ha! So we ate tangerines.

As I said, there were the four of us Americans. “Red” Hunter, a youngster of 19, who looks more like Spencer Tracy than Tracy does himself. Red is a religious youth and aspires to be a missionary someday. Sgt. Engel, lean, hawk-faced, fierce blue eyes, a bit smaller than I, and hopes this summer will find him back home on his Pennsylvania farm after his 2 year army stretch. John Gattis, from Alabama, I think, a carpenter and builder before his army life—very handy with a guitar, and a very good singing voice. He has a wife and two kids at home. And the fourth G.I.—well you know him pretty well already. Or have you forgotten me?

The others were: Johnny. More properly his name is John Kim. Johnny’s-----MAIL CALL!

I had just about given up hope that I had a letter when they called my name and gave me your letter of Dec. 11^th. It’s the first letter I’ve got since I left the States. Darling, I love you!

Dad interrupted his narrative to respond to things in Mom’s letter, reading it and re-reading it a number of times. Several pages later he returns to introducing the other Christmas Eve partiers: Johnny Kim’s wife, a university graduate and not a Christian, a Mr. Ree, a doctor named Miss Nagato, whom Dad describes as “very kind to Koreans,” plus the serving girl at the hotel, invited to join the group, “giggly,” whose “contribution to entertainment was two or three Japanese songs sung in a very high-pitched voice.”

They asked us about our age, our work, and our families. I showed them my pictures of you, Sharon, and Stevie and in three different languages I was told very emphatically that you are very lovely, Sharon very beautiful and Stevie a wonderful boy—and that I was a very lucky man. And [they asked] did I miss you all tonight? Did I miss you! Lord, Honey, no one could ever measure the amount of feeling that I had to compress into three simple words for the sake of John Kim’s limited vocabulary of English when I said very slowly, “Very, very much!”

I miss Mom and Dad very, very much. And I am grateful to be reminded of their love and faith through their words of Christmas past.

*Koreans were treated harshly during World War II.

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Domestic Baggage Claim

View from our hotel room balcony.

Returning to Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport from a brief holiday, the sign directing us to “Domestic Baggage Claim” prompted me thinking about how difficult it is to claim our “domestic baggage.”

Traveling with Wade kept us mindful of the “domestic baggage” we carry even when on a somewhat “carefree” vacation, away from home responsibilities and routines. We know each other so well: I know not to rush Wade off the plane, as is my wont; he knows my propensity for chatter with him and almost everyone we encounter. (He’s pretty good at that, too, when the fancy strikes him.)

He was attending a business conference in Las Vegas, and I tagged along, cashing in mileage to fly free. While he was attending his meetings and obligatory socials, I hung out with my brother and a friend, who came up from Los Angeles to visit while showing me around yet another city that never sleeps.

I had been to Vegas “accidentally” three times before: driving home to L.A. with fellow seminarians who wanted to stop there for a couple of hours to gamble; on a flight from Hawai’i diverted from a fogged-in LAX to LAS overnight; and finally, there with a group of United Methodists and Presbyterians to protest the nearby nuclear test site—all more than thirty years ago when the city was much less “fa-bu-lous” than it is today.

But this was my first intentional visit to the city, though the draw was traveling with Wade for the first time in years, seeing family, and—I must admit—enjoying the hotel amenities. We also dined at two fine restaurants, and took in one show, Cirque de Soleil’s “Love” featuring Beatles music. We never gambled, not out of principle, just that the slot machines looked too complicated, and we have no particular expertise at card games.

A woman whose language I couldn't even identify

kindly offered to take this photo of Wade and me.

The weather app on my phone said I was in Paradise, but the 110-113 degrees it registered told me I was in quite the other place.

My impression was that Las Vegas is the internet incarnated, with all its distractions, diversions, flashing lights, waving banners, demands for attention, bawdy enticements, noisy promotions. We could watch water fountain shows from our balcony, eat at a Mexican restaurant along the Grand Canal (!) as singing gondoliers guided their gondolas past, witness tourists jump off a 108-story casino or slide in a tube through a shark-infested pool.

I enjoyed nursing a glass of chardonnay in the lobby bar as literally hundreds of passing souls satisfied my appetite for people-watching.

But getting back to my topic of claiming our domestic baggage. Both my brother and sister and I are of an age where we can smile at our separate baggage, our different peccadillos, even sometimes laugh and tease one another about them. Birth order, diverse vocational paths, unique personality traits, disappointments, and achievements, even who we might have voted for in the last election. We may still roll our eyes or take exceptions, but we know we are not going to change the other, nor are we going to change the love we have for one another.

We have been one another’s most penetrating critics and strongest defenders, we have suffered and celebrated at each other’s hands, but we are family. The one thing we can agree on is our love for our parents and their love for us, though we recognize their own limitations and vulnerabilities even as they did ours. (The poet W.H. Auden once wrote of the value of viewing God as parent [“father” in his words], because it suggests our bond with God is indissoluble.)

Awaiting our departure at the Vegas airport, Wade and I started chatting with the restaurant server. As it turned out, she had purposely chosen her son’s name as my mother had, Christopher. And his middle name is also Roy, as mine is. I told her of another coincidence I had experienced with a Delta rep on my birthday years ago (see my post about it). Her name was Chris, and we shared the same birthdate.

I have a feeling that if we chatted more with one another, strangers would find more and more such coincidences, more things we have in common, as well as more differences to appreciate. In a world and a time when there are those who would divide us, it’s time we claimed our domestic baggage, sharing our personal “stuff."

A Native American woman once began a workshop I attended, saying of indigenous peoples, “When we meet one another for the first time, we try to find out how we are related.” This is a good model for us all, I think.

Jesus might have said, “Who are my mother and brothers and sisters? Those who know their mother and father God’s love for all God’s children.”

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