Drastic ambition

"Mom, how old do you have to be to qualify for a wish from the Make A Wish Foundation?" my son asked, emerging from the bathroom, guitar in hand. He has a habit of enclosing himself in the bathroom and playing his guitar, sometimes with the amp, sometimes not. I don't know why, maybe it's the acoustics. He'll spend hours in there practicing.

Immediately, I froze, wondering if somehow he had contracted a death-dealing disease but hadn't told me yet...but no, that couldn't be, because otherwise I would have been notified when he had his last physical. But then I thought, wait, maybe it's one of his friends, or a child he knows about.

"Mom?"

"Uh, I don't know," I said. Much moved by his apparent kind-heartedness and wanting to help, I opened my browser and Googled "Make a Wish Foundation." "It looks like between the ages of 2 1/2 and 18."

"Dang."

"What's wrong?" I asked, my concern rising.

"I only have a year to get leukemia, make a wish to jam on the guitar with Eric Clapton, have that fulfilled, and then somehow get better."

I groaned. Yet another example of an adolescent's sense of immortality. "No. You do not want to get leukemia, trust me on this."

He sighed. "Yeah, I guess you're right. With my luck I'll get it when I'm 40, when it's too late."

"With any luck, you won't get it at all! You'll have to think of a better way to someday jam with Eric Clapton."

"What if I got run over by a truck? Would that get me a wish?"

"No. Besides, you might get your hands crushed and then you couldn't jam with anyone."

"Huh, yeah. Don't want that." A thoughtful look came over his face. "Lyme disease?"

"NO!" I said.

He looked offended. "I'm just wondering!"

"No diseases!" I said firmly. "No accidents, and I don't care how much you want to play music with Eric Clapton. You'll just have to practice and practice until you get so ridiculously good at playing any kind of music that just one riff played by your incredibly nimble fingers will astonish everyone for miles around, to the point where they will follow you around like the Pied Piper, including--"

"Eric Clapton! And then he will want to jam with me because my guitar playing is so awesome as to defy description, and I'll say, okay, dude, if you can keep up, and meanwhile I'm thinking, 'eat my dust' because I will be SO better than Clapton."

"Exactly," I said, heartlessly sacrificing Eric Clapton to ignominy for the sake of my son's health and welfare.

"Cool!" he said, and returned to the bathroom.

"While you're at it, you might clean the toilet if you're going to spend some time in there," I said, hoping against hope that he might remember to do that.

"Sure," he said, but his voice was already sounding absent.

I wonder if there's a way to attach a toilet brush to an electric guitar, so that he could clean the toilet while he played? Probably the only way to get him to do it on a regular basis. (sigh)

--Karen H.

Soft as Cookie Dough. But NOT cute!

My son came home one day and told me that his friends at school AND from church choir think I'm cute.

I said, "what do you MEAN cute?" Cute does not sit well with me. Hey, old-school feminist here, and a feminist can be anything she wants, but not cute.

He said, "You know, sweet and kindly cute. The sort that bakes cookies and wouldn't hurt a fly."

"You of course told them that they were wrong, that I'm really a nasty mean mom who bullies you daily, and who never appreciates you enough," I said, trying to maintain a position of strength. "Teenagers are supposed to say things like that about their parents, because of their adolescent rebellion and all. And by the way, the cookie dough is in the fridge, second shelf."

"No," he said, grinning and patting me on the head from his ridiculously tall height, "I said they were right. My friends are pretty smart."

"You realize this totally destroys the image I was trying to portray of someone totally kick-ass and, you know, sort of Clint Eastwood-like, except female."

"Sorry, Mom, you're just going to have to live with the image of cuteness."

"I'm not baking those cookies this time," I said, putting on a stern look.

"That's fine, I'll bake 'em. Did you get my favorite, the chocolate chip kind with macadamia nuts?"

"Yeah, I got 'em."

"Thanks, Mom." He kissed me on the forehead. "You're a sweet, kindly, cute mom."

Argh. Either I'm going to have to put on a tougher image, or I'm going to have to stop buying cookie dough.

--Karen H.

School Bus

We sat down to dinner yesterday, when my husband John looked quickly from me to our son and then back again. He said, "I realized this morning that it's the last day I'll ever see Derek get on a school bus."

"Oh my God," I said, and put my hand over my heart, where I felt a sudden empty-nest ache. "You're right! It's the last time he'll ever be on a school bus. It's been...years. Ever since..."

"I was in 7th grade," Derek said with a look of disgust on his face. "You drove me to school all during elementary school. It's only been five years on the bus, Mom. No big deal, and in fact, thank God it's over."

"Five years is a lot in developmental terms," I said firmly. "A lot." I sighed, thinking of those five years. "Five whole years getting on a school bus, and now it's over, because it's the last day of school. The last day of high school."

"No, it's not," Derek said. He glanced at his father, who was paying deep attention to his dinner. "Tomorrow is the last day of school, and you have to drive me there because I won't be going until about 10 o'clock."

"I'll have to drive you," I said. "I remember when I used to drive you to elementary school, how we'd rush like crazy to make it out the door, how you dawdled over your clothes, forgetting your homework--"

"Right," Derek interrupted. "That was a long time ago. And now I'm done with high school."

"And done with riding on the school bus," I said, sighing. "It's the end of an era."

He groaned, and looked as if he wanted to bang his head on his plate. "NO. It's the BEGINNING of one. The BEGINNING of an era." He looked at his dad. "May I be excused?" He rose and put away his plate before his dad nodded his agreement.

John looked at me. "We have to get our licks in before he goes, right?"

"That's right," I said. "As many as we can."

We smiled at each other and bent once more to our dinner.

--Karen H.

A little less of the empty nest syndrome

I'm looking at my kid's messy room, the kind that is akin to the Augean stables, and know that once again, he will forget to buy the tickets to the graduation ceremony, like I asked him a million times already, or at least it feels like that. He's left his wallet on the floor again. Actually, considering all the things parents have to go through to raise a child right, I think we are owed that "asked him a million times already" feeling, especially through the teenaged years. And I know I'm going to ask him this afternoon, where are the tickets? And he's going to say, oh, yeah, yeah, I forgot. And I'm going to feel this little burny sensation, and go through all the reasons I love him and why he's really a good kid, and then I'm going to open my mouth and give him what for.

Because I worry. I think, he's a procrastinator, he's messy, he doesn't know how to handle money like he should, he has putrid phone manners, and soon he's going to go to college. Without me to nag him, he'll leave his dorm room so messy, he'll trip over his backpack and slice his hand on the bounced check he left on the floor, it'll get infected, and he'll die of blood poisoning, or at least be hounded the rest of his life by Bad Credit (which figures in my mind as this huge hairy beast with Really Big Claws and one eye fixed on your pocketbook). And then, with this picture in mind, I yell at him as soon as I see a snitty teenaged eye-roll--which may happen within the the first few minutes of him walking into the house from school--because I have to get my licks in to set him straight on the narrow road to redemption in the few months I have left as mom-in-residence.

The few months I have left to get it right.

Yeah. That's what it's all about. Me getting it right in the last few months with this kid. Just in case I didn't get it right the last 18 years.

Taking a deep breath.

There's a Bible on my desk--I left it there from Sunday, so you can guess where my son gets his messy nature (hey, so I don't want him to be like me in this!). I distractedly open it up, and it falls to the story about Jesus when he got in trouble with his parents. I breathe another deep breath--of relief.

You know the story. The one where the Holy Family goes to Jerusalem when Jesus is an adolescent, along with friends and relatives, in a nice big happy party. They do the Passover gig, and then they start off to go home to Nazareth. They're a day away from the Big City, and then Mary turns to Joseph:

Mary: Dear, have you seen Jesus lately?
Joseph: No. I thought he was with you.
Mary, beginning to feel anxious: No, I thought he was with you!
Joseph: He's not with his cousins? Or his friends?
Mary: No, I just looked!
Mary and Joseph, looking at each other in panic: "Oh my God, we left him in Jerusalem!"

So they go rushing back amongst the teeming population of Jerusalem, having nightmares about their boy amongst hostile Romans who'd as soon stick you with a sword as look at you, and greedy acquisitive slave traders who would be all too happy to get their hands on a nice healthy boy, and who knows what other sickos he might encounter that exist in places that a boy might just wander into, especially a friendly sort of boy like Jesus. And then there is this little added tidbit that he is also the Son of God entrusted to their care, and probably the Most High would at least be a little bit ticked off at their oversight.

But they do find him, being all smart and having fun with his new friends at the Temple. And I'm sure the elders there are patting his back and nodding approvingly at Mary and Joseph and saying, "fine, smart boy you've got there, you should be proud, because he's amazing, you know that?"

They are proud, but as soon as they get Jesus on the road, all hell--er, so to speak--breaks loose. "What the Gehenna were you thinking? Didn't you know your mother was crying her eyes out?" "Don't you know you could have been hurt? Why didn't you TELL US WHERE YOU WERE?"

And what do they get from Jesus? Backtalk, that's what, and I bet it was with that adolescent snitty eye-roll, too. "Mom, Dad, I was just FINE. I was with my FRIENDS, and--" he lifts his nose in the air, "Doing my Father's work." As if Joseph's carpentry was just one up on shoveling pig slop.

It says in the Bible that they didn't understand, and yeah, they probably didn't understand how he could be the Son of God and still be a bratty adolescent. But you have to figure, if he was flesh and bone and went from being a little baby to a man, there was all sorts of things like dirty diapers to be changed and skinned knees to be cleaned up, and I bet adolescent hormones and snitty eye-rolls were part of the package. In fact, I bet the phrase "and he was subject unto them," was a nice way of saying that Joseph then and there took Jesus by the ear and said, "you are sticking to us like GLUE until we get home to Nazareth." And Mary added, "you are SO grounded, kiddo."

I'm not sure Mary and Joseph cured Jesus of his back-talk, though. He still was doing a lot of verbal sniping at the Pharisees as an adult. And we know how much trouble that got him into.

But it did make me feel a little better, and let go just a bit more. If the Holy Family left behind their son when he was 12 years old for more than a day in the Big City and got back talk from him, my husband and I, we're not doing too bad. (Hey, WE didn't leave our kid behind in the Big City!) I guess there's only so much you can do with a kid before you have to let him be what he has to be.

--Karen H.

Learning through joy

Most of us believe that we have to suffer to learn life's lessons, bear some kind of pain to achieve growth, and all that.

I''m going to suggest something different: it's possible to learn through joy.

I'm not putting down anyone who has traveled the rocky road (and I'm not talking about ice cream here, although if someone has grown emotionally or spiritually by ingesting chocolate ice cream, I want to hear about it), because hey, been there done that, and it's been valuable. But when I look back on that road, most of those rocks were ones I put there myself out of stubbornness or impatience or whatever other one of the seven deadlies you want to name, including the worst--despair. Sometimes it was out of ignorance or inexperience. It happens.

But there are times of great and little joys, and for some reason we tend to discount them, as if they were trivial or fleeting and thus not worth consideration. The times of laughter can't mean as much as the times of grief or anger. Those depressing ideas are pervasive. Think about it: how many times have comedies won the Academy Award compared to dramas? Not a whole lot.

However, it is in those times of laughter that our defenses are down, and we let the truth in. What makes us laugh is not something that threatens us, even though it may be something that's presented to us in a surprising or unusual way. Even when it's something as simple as a pun, there is a connection established nevertheless, the twinkling eyes of the punster meeting the rolling ones of the audience because there is an understanding that yes, they are on the same page, they "get it." Right there, you know that the presentation of a surprise, of some change in your understanding is fine, is good, is at least not going to hurt you or anyone else in any real way. An intellectual or emotional connection with your fellow human beings is a generally good thing.

And yes, I have know punsters who have committed very egregious puns, and I still maintain it's a good thing.

Then there are the other times of laughter or joy--the birth of a much desired child (would that all births of children were welcomed!), the touch of a tender hand, words of praise sincerely given, the joy of giving and watching another's face light with pleasure. These are not just mindless instances, but opportunities to learn, to grow. Dwell in the knowledge that you are worth a tender touch, the praise, that you have the power to bring joy. These are empowering things, and if you don't have a certain amount of power, how will you grow?

It takes power--energy--to grow. If a flower refuses the touch of the sun, shrinks from taking in water, it will most certainly not grow. And yet, people will shrink from the warmth of love, from the joy of acknowledging the gifts of others, and their own gifts. That's not growing, or I should say, it's the hard road to growth, because first you feel the hurt and the darkness before you get the idea, oh, wait, that love and joy stuff was all right after all. It'd be a lot easier to acknowledge the joy right from the start.

So if you're given a moment of joy, dwell in it. Sink yourself in it and revel in it. You may learn a lot more than you think.

--Karen H.

Another thought

The simplest beliefs are the hardest to live by.

--Karen H.

About that last post of mine

A little grouchy were we? Why I persist in posting in the dead of night, I don't know. I was tired when I wrote it.

The title of that post, I should mention, is from Shakespeare's sonnet #116, which goes like this:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

- - - -

I should have just posted that poem, because it really says it all. It doesn't say that life will be smooth and wonderful and great, or that nobody will grow old and die. It does say that love is always there, steady, a guide to who and where you are, even when you think you're lost. Love brings peace, and points of joy. If it doesn't, my question to you is, what are you afraid of? What are you avoiding? What conditions are you putting on love that you don't have the peace and the joy? And if your emotions are in upheaval, if you're troubled, if you're lost...is that love's fault, or is it your own?

The funny thing about people is that when their love life goes wrong, when they feel lonely, they blame it on love, rather like the way they'll blame things on God when life in general doesn't go right, or when people start fighting and killing each other, or natural disasters--"acts of God" as if the only acts of God are disasterous. Which actually is all right where love and God is concerned because they can take a lot of hits and still will be around after the dust settles. They're probably the only scapegoats that can take that much punishment. So go ahead and blame love, blame God, they can take it.

The thing is, can you? That's the sad thing; you point fingers at love as the ultimate in stupidity, and you know, you may get a sense of superiority, you may get a feeling of sophistication and even righteousness, but your home is still pretty lonely at night, even if you had all the money in the world to buy willing bodies to fill that home...well, that's all you've got, bodies and not hearts.

It can be a scary thing, this love. But I don't think you can afford to be without it.

Go where love is.

--Karen H.

An Ever-Fixed Mark

We romance writers write a lot about love, which of course most everyone scorns as romantic sap, pap, sentimentality, all that.

As if all of that was bad. Puhleeze. It's a hell of a lot better than violence, evil, hatred, and despair. Give me sentimental pap any day over the next betrayal, the next drive-by shooting, the next drug overdose. We romance writers know about that stuff. We read all about it. Many of us have had to deal with it.

But we still hold onto hope, and of course love. Especially love. Because the truth is, love is the strongest thing there is.

Ooh, oooh, Karen, you are SUCH a Pollyanna!

Damn straight I am, and me and Pollyanna are right, too. We're backed up by such greats as Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and many, many others of such ilk. I remember Jesus was really big on the love issue, and not so hot on the violence and hatred thing. People who are really connected to God tend to be that way, and frankly I think the way people tend to take the "Reverend" title off the name of Martin Luther King is not a good thing, because it diminishes his roots, where he came from. It's good to remember where people come from, because there's a lot to be learned from the path they walk, where they left traces of the love they had to give.

Let me tell you something I know about. Let's say you have someone who is in great pain, someone who is dying of a slow, terrible disease. As his loved ones gather around him, the nurses administer the pain medication so that his passing will be "comfortable"--and believe you me, it's never comfortable, it only takes the edge off the ever-present pain. And yet, through the drug, through the terrible pain, this person manages to look at those he loves and says, "I love you." Those are the words he says, over and over again, and you know it's true. My dad said this before he died, and I'm sure some of you know of others who said it before they died.

Now why is it that this person says these words? We're talking major pain here. We're talking impending death. What most of us would think are the Big Ticket Items of Life. But this person chooses to talk of love.

This is because to this person, love is more important than pain. It's more important than impending death. There are times you can't do anything about the pain you have or the pain someone else has. You sure as hell can't do anything about death. We all die. We don't have a choice about these things. Pain and death are a fact of life.

But you can do a lot about love. You can choose to love, you can choose to tell those you love that you love them. The will to love is so strong, that once you have given it, you want to give it again, even through pain, even through impending death. Getting love is a pretty grand thing, too.

Many years ago, I met a woman who told me she didn't want to be in a relationship with anyone, because it would be too painful when that person died or left her. It would be painful for the person who loved her if she died or left. Best not to love at all. This woman didn't even have a pet, no dog, no cat, not even a plastic one, I'm sure. I think I told her that I was sorry she felt like that. I felt really sad that she wouldn't experience love, that she'd be lonely all her life, but wow, she had a point, to love and to lose is very painful.

More than a decade later, I thought of that woman again and I thought, what a chickenshit. I tell you, the older I get, the less patience I seem to have for people, it's terrible. (Not.) A few more years later--today, in fact--I thought about her again, and I still think she's chickenshit.

Let's look at this logically. (1) We all die. (2) We all feel pain, both physically and emotionally. (3) Both 1 and 2 are unavoidable. Proof? Name one person who has never experienced either physical or emotional pain of any kind. I dare ya.

Given the above, we still have choices about (1) how we die--and I don't really mean what we die of, but rather how we conduct ourselves, and (2) the some of the kinds of pain we will feel and how we'll respond to it.

So I have to ask you: given that you will die, and that you will feel pain of some kind, would you prefer to go through pain and death never having experienced the joy of love even for a moment, or experienced it even for the space of a day?

Think carefully. Two choices, both of which have pain and most certainly death at the end. One has experienced the joy of love. The other has not.

I'm sad to say that there will be more than a few people who will choose Door Number Two, like that chickenshit woman. She was too afraid to reach out for love, to reach out for the joy. I won't deny it takes courage--or naivete!--to love. It's never anger or hatred that keeps us from love, it's always fear. And I have to say, those who claim that only the naive dare love and love often, are probably in the fear camp. I'd rather be naive than a chickenshit, and frankly at the age of 40-something, I think I have got over most of my naivete, and hopefully most of my fear, thought that Fear-Girl, she is a sneaky thing and can think of all sorts of reasons why I Can't, and Shouldn't, and Won't.

However, I'm in on the Pollyanna deal, so I choose the life with love in it, fear or no fear. I'm all over the love thang, I'm seizing life with both hands and wrapping the bow-ties of love over that whole big package. And on my deathbed, I'm going to look at my loved ones--or what the heck, anyone who happens to be nearby--and say, "I love you."

At the very least, it'll freak someone out, and I'll have a good chuckle before I go. :-)

--Karen H.

A thought

Love is the highest truth, and kindness the best virtue.

--Karen H.

Empty nest syndrome

Yeah, I've got it. Bad. And no, this is not something that will send me into a dark enough mood to write a DARK DARK DARK story. My boy is going off to college in a little more than three months.

Being a mom is the one occupation where, if you've done a good job, you're essentially fired. Okay, not exactly, because as my son says, I'll always be his mom. But it sure feels that way.

Thing is, I believe the hubby and I have done a good job. Our son is a good kid...young man...well, as he puts it, "dude." He says that while he is not a kid any more, he doesn't quite feel like a man yet either, even though at 18, he is legally an adult. He says there should be an in-between man-and-boy state, and he figures "dude"is about right, because he thinks a man is a guy who is ready to take on a full time job and a family, and he's not there yet.

So, my son is a good dude. And while I would tend toward the term "kid," I suspect he's closer to the right term than I am. For a young male who is just about ready to go to college, he's a laid-back, highly intelligent, artistically and musically talented, reasonably mature, cheerful sort who has never been in any bad trouble, no more more trouble than a couple of months' worth of grounding didn't cure. He's kind, generous, and hard working once he gets himself going, and an ironic and quirky sense of humor. He has a few faults of course: procrastination, impatience, and a lack of...diplomacy. In other words, he does not hesitate to speak the blunt truth, which has got him into trouble in his early teen years. Nothing like a smart-aleck to upset the authorities, especially if he's got all of his facts to back him up. He has learned some diplomacy--that is, to shut up when it's wise to do so.

I remember broken ankles from skateboarding, bloodied knees from falling off his bicycle, a couple of fights defending smaller kids from bullies (yes, that did get him in trouble at school, but that is the one thing that will throw him into a towering rage, seeing others being bullied). But other than that--knock on wood--no other trouble.

I'm glad he's the way he is. It's been a joy to watch him grow up to what he is. He's active in church, is an Eagle Scout, all that, without being a prig. He's not even embarrassed to tell me or my husband that he loves us--in public. He has, most of all, a loving heart.

Knowing all of this still doesn't eliminate the hole that's beginning to form in my heart. I'm going to miss that boy something terrible when he goes to college.

But he's turning out all right. And yeah, I'm counting my blessings. Along with my dear husband, he's a big blessing in my life, and I'm thankful. I hope some day he'll bring as much joy to others as he has to us.

Sure, I'm biased. I love that boy to pieces. But I'm betting you all know of teenagers who are good kids, too. The media and TV shows and all show us all the problems with teenagers, all the awful things about them. The media makes us think that there are ravaging hordes of teenagers out there about to maul, kill, vandalize, get pregnant, you name it. But I'm betting those are in the minority. In fact, according to the most recent US Census Bureau and the Center for Disease control, teenage violence and teen pregnancies are at an all-time low.

I remember when my boy was about three years old, we went trick-or-treating. There were kids of all sizes out there running around in their costumes. But all of a sudden, he cried out and clutched my leg. I said, "Derek, it's just kids in costumes!" But he shook his head. "No, Mommy, I'm afraid of the teenagers."

That shocked me. "Did any of those kids ever hurt you?" I asked, ready to do battle if need be. He shook his head again. "No. But teenagers do bad things, I see it on TV all the time. They never do anything good." It wasn't until I told him that every grown-up was once a teenager, and that his mom and dad weren't bad when we were teenagers that he finally was comforted.

Wow. If that's the impression a pretty smart three year old child picked up, the "bad teen" image must be pretty prevalent. I heard somewhere that even though the crime rate has fallen fairly steadily in the last 20 years, the reporting of crime and violence has increased 720 percent. In other words, we're hearing about the same violence over and over and over again. What's really sad is that it has a definite effect: people are pretty willing to give up on teenagers if they do get into trouble. They're not even willing to donate used clothes for homeless or impoverished teenagers. Plenty of new and used clothes are donated for elementary school kids, but middle-school or high school kids? Forget it. And yet, I know of homeless teens who nevertheless try so very hard to stay in school, despite the lack of food, clothes, and a safe place to stay. Teens who'll do their homework by the light of a streetlamp, or if they're lucky to find a spot, an outside table at a Starbucks, or in the public library if it's open. If there are homeless teenagers who are still trying to do the right thing, there are no doubt a lot more teens who have homes and families who are also trying to do the right thing as well.

So I'm thinking the reality is, things aren't as bad as the media makes it out to be. I'm not saying that there isn't violence and that we don't need to try to improve our society. There is, and we do.

But chances are good that it's not nearly as bad as we think it is. I'm willing to bet you know of at least a couple of teenagers who are good kids, who maybe mess up, but who get back on track, do their best, and most of all, have good hearts. If you know of any, chime in! And if they're your own, feel free to boast away. :-)

--Karen H.