Tag Archives: family

My Two Little Brothers

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My parents found an old photo album that I hadn’t seen before and looking through it brought back a flood of happy childhood memories…

I have two “little brothers” – Pete and Dave. I can’t remember a time before Pete – he’s only 13 months younger than me, and my accomplice in toddler shenanigans. I see those old black-and-white photos of us, our heads together, big grins on our faces after we’ve managed to escape unscathed from some new exploit. We were always up to something. We kept Mom on her toes. And there’s my youngest brother, Dave – he’s four years younger than me and I DO remember the first time I met him – I remember looking in his crib as he slept and whispering in awe to my mom, “He’s got long legs!” And he did. And he does. At 6’3″, my “littlest” brother is now a full foot taller than me.

Pete and I both went to Washington State University and worked at Mount Rainier during the summers – we climbed to the summit of Rainier together back in ’76. Dave took a different route – went to Western Washington University to study marine biology and spent time with NOAA, traveling on Japanese fishing boats around the Pacific. Life took us separate directions – to our own careers, travels, adventures, marriages, children, trials, failures, achievements, successes (among other things, my long-legged youngest brother, Dave, turned out to be an ultra marathon runner – yup, he’s one of those dudes who runs 50 miles a day on mountain trails for the fun of it). But a few times a year we all come together again to tromp around in the mountains together, or to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays.

Just a few weeks ago we met up to celebrate Dad’s 96th birthday. At some point in the festivities Pete and I found ourselves standing together at the folks’ fence, looking with some longing towards the fields and woods at the back of their property. Neither one of us had been back to the creek for a really long time. There were thistles and thorns and an over-grown trail between us and the creek. Pete was wearing shorts; I was wearing capris, and sandals. Trying to bushwack our way to the creek could be tricky. We put our heads together, as we ‘d done when we were toddlers, and once again conspired shenanigans. “How hard could it be?” “What’s the worst that could happen?” And then – just as we’d done when we were toddlers – we set out together for a new adventure – Peter opened the gate and we maneuvered our way around the thistles, stomped down the thorny things, and set out for the creek. Half-way across the field, we turned around and saw that Dave and his son, Casey, and my husband, Scott, and our son, Andrew, had seen us, and were all coming to join us.

The creek holds some really rich memories for my brothers and me. Over there, under the canopy of cedar branches, was my “Secret Place” – the place where I’d go to be alone and watch the squirrels doing their high-wire act in the treetops.  Past my Secret Place, my brothers had made forts and bridges in the woods with their friends, and, later, our own sons had built the imaginary little community of “Bridgeport”. While Casey and Andrew went off now to check on the fate of Bridgeport, the older generation stood by the creek and breathed in the rich smells of wet earth and green growing things – skunk cabbage and cedar trees and wet ground cover.

It hit me, then, how very glad I am to have my brothers. We’ve known each other since the beginning of our lives. We’ve been there for each other during the good times and the bad. They hold my history in their memories, and I hold theirs. I am proud to be their big sister, and grateful for our sibling friendship. How different my life would be without my brothers, and how very glad I am to have them in my life.

Sibling relationships — and 80 percent of Americans have at least one — outlast marriages, survive the death of parents, resurface after quarrels that would sink any friendship. They flourish in a thousand incarnations of closeness and distance, warmth, loyalty and distrust.
-Erica E. Goode, “The Secret World of Siblings,” U.S. News & World Report, 1994 January 10th

To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other’s hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time.
-Clara Ortega

Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply…
-Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1814

“Beauty is a thing of life…”

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“The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or how badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.” – Kurt Vonnegut

***

Oldest son is home from university for spring break. As I’m upstairs, working on some photos I’ve taken this morning, I hear him downstairs, practicing snippets of songs on the piano. I go down the stairs half-way and sit on the steps around the corner – positioned so he can’t see me – and settle in to listen. Soon he gets up and moves around and sees me sitting there – I’m busted! He grins. “Will you play some more?” I ask. “Sure,” he says – he is a good sport, my son. He goes back to the piano and I make myself comfortable on the sofa, stretched-out horizontal, eyes closed – and listen to the perfect beauty of Pachelbel. After a minute or two I open my eyes and glance into the dining room – and there’s the youngest son, finishing up a project for an art class. Two images flash into my memory: The oldest son sitting at the piano as a toddler, a big grin on his face; The youngest son on his knees on a chair in front of the dining room table, a paint brush in his little two year-old hand, creating a watercolor.

***

Oldest son is three-fifths of the way through War and Peace. Something has just struck him – he’s been wondering why everyone is learning to play music in this book – and at first he’s thinking – why is it so important?  And then it hits him – oh… yeah… if you wanted to share music with your friends 200 years ago, you had to be able to play it yourself!

I am surrounded by expressions of Soul. I feel wealthy beyond description.

        Whatever inspires with wisdom, Truth, or Love – be it song, sermon, or Science – blesses the human family with crumbs of comfort from Christ’s table, feeding the hungry and giving living waters to the thirsty. – Mary Baker Eddy

Beauty is a thing of life, which dwells forever in the eternal Mind and reflects the charms of His goodness in expression, form, outline, and color. – Mary Baker Eddy

 

No sour grapes here, nosiree…

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What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord god, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine… – Ezekiel 18: 2-4

The transmission of disease or of certain idiosyncrasies of mortal mind would be impossible if this great fact of being were learned, – namely, that nothing inharmonious can enter being, for Life is God. Heredity is a prolific subject for mortal belief to pin theories upon; but if we learn that nothing is real but the right, we shall have no dangerous inheritances… – Mary Baker Eddy

***

I realized today that even in our own families there are things we skirt around in conversation. The things it’s okay to talk about are trips we’ve taken, hikes we’ve hiked, how much money is in the savings, what books we’re reading, and what movies we’ve seen. The men in the family bond over talk of sports and car up-keep, and the women bond over talk of politics and  flowers and pets. And I mean in no way to belittle any of those conversations  – they are legitimate, they have a place, they bring us together. But there are other conversations that we skip around, things that would be helpful to say, and that maybe should be said – but we’re afraid might bring confrontation or discomfort, or make someone feel hurt or attacked. And so we don’t go there.

Today as I sat at breakfast with my oldest son and my husband – as they talked sports and car up-keep – I realized I was standing at a sort of verbal crossroads – I could go the safe direction and throw in my two cents about the Seahawks and Pete Carroll, and the price of petrol, or I could go that other direction and maybe hear something that would hurt, but might be helpful to me.

I took a deep breath, and plunged towards the scary path.  I’m not going to tell you what I asked, or what was answered, because I do not want to. But because I went down the scary path, I had an epiphany this morning.

***

Speaking from a materially-genetic, hereditary standpoint, I guess you could say that I’ve inherited two very different natures from my very different parents. Mom is a wise, nurturing, loving, compassionate  empath –a  defender of the down-trodden, and champion for truth, justice, and equality.  She is Frodo Baggins in a Superman cape – a homebody without ego or the need for adventure, although she has had her share of adventures.  Dad is… Dad is a little more complicated.  He’s an explorer, an adventurer, a Renaissance man – artist, mountain-climber, geologist, hydrologist, ski instructor, cartographer, author.  He’s always up to something.  Last summer, at the age of 95, he finished a mural he’d painted on the side of their shed – and this mural covered a space that was 12 feet high – so I’m guessing there was some ladder-climbing involved. He’s traveled to six of the earth’s continents, hob-nobbed with politicians and celebrities, and lived a most unusual life. There are certain traits he possesses that have allowed him to lead this unusual life.

And, speaking from a materially-genetic standpoint, I might seem to be a weird combo of these two antipodal individuals. Sometimes these two natures seem to be at odds in myself. I can recognize the good stuff I seem to have inherited – the kindness and empathy that are qualities of Mom; the need to explore, discover, and create that are qualities of Dad. And I can recognize the other stuff – the not-so-good stuff –  I seem to have inherited, too.

A lot of people have labeled me “sweet.” Sweet is good. I kind of wish I was wholly that person.  But I am not.  People are sometimes surprised, and disappointed, when they realize at some point that “sweet” is just a part of my human personality.  My human personality has also been known to be impatient, angry, self-righteously indignant, opportunistic, cranky, and reactive.  There have been battles with ego. The human personality is not always “nice.”

Does the bad of the human personality totally negate the good? Does the cranky negate the sweet?

Geeze. I really hope not.

So a couple things:

Regarding genetics – I don’t think I ever fully recognized that I even had this belief until today. But this morning my belief in heredity was exposed. I saw that I had allowed it to make a claim on me – had, without being aware I was doing this, allowed genetics to be an explanation, and maybe an excuse, for being who I am.  I had made it some kind of law that I had to follow. And, as Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the textbook for Christian Science, “Heredity is not a law.”  It never was a law, and I never really was thrall to it.

Regarding the nature of man – In reality, we are all the children of God – the image and likeness of Love – and all we can inherit are the qualities of Love. There’s nothing Love, God, can create which could be in any way unlike Love.  That’s the truth about all of us – Mom, Dad, me, and you, too. In reality, there IS no dual nature of man.

I recently changed my “author’s bio” on Amazon  – removed the part about my up-bringing and how I was raised . I am responsible for my own behaviors at this point. Genetics is a two-headed coin – if you accept the heads of it, you also have to accept the tails. And I don’t wanna. I’m not dependent on inherited glories.  I don’t need to accept inherited pains, either. I am my own self.  And the only real inheritance I have comes from my Father-Mother God.

Instructions to a First-time Mom: “Love her. Just love her.”

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My mother tells me that when I was born and she held me in her arms for the first time, the weight of the responsibility of raising and caring for me suddenly filled her with great fear. She was so afraid she’d mess it all up somehow.

She looked up at the doctor and shared her fears with him. The doctor smiled at her sweet face and said, “Love her. Just love her.”

This was something my mom knew how to do – and do really well.

My brothers and I may not have had the most conventional up-bringing – but none of us could have asked for a mother with more love in her heart.  We grew up witnesses to how she expressed love to others –  seeing her voice her protest for those who were being treated unfairly, watching her take in stray animals and make them part of the family, seeing how a room would light up as soon as she entered it and smiled her love on everyone. And the love she expressed wasn’t some feigned thing, either. It came from deep inside her – true and pure. She truly loved mankind and all God’s creatures – and we saw this, and incorporated her example into our own sense of how to live a decent and moral life.

As I think back on my younger years, there’s one moment that stands out for me. I think I must have been in my early twenties, and there was some sadness about a break-up with a boyfriend or something – dashed hopes of some kind – I can’t remember the specifics now – but I was feeling lost and alone – not sure what direction I was supposed to take in my life. I was home visiting Mom and Dad, and had gone out into the backyard to look up at the stars and pray. Mom must have known I was out there, and came and stood beside me. I shared my sadness with her then – I think I shared how I was feeling like a “surplus” person – like there seemed to be no place for me. My mom reached over to one of her rose bushes and gently plucked a rose from it and handed it to me. She looked into my eyes and said, “This is you. I see you unfolding into a most beautiful rose.” And then she went back into the house.

Wow. Those simple words, spoken with perfect love, totally reversed my thoughts about myself and my circumstances. Mom loved me. Mom thought I was unfolding like a beautiful rose. How cool is that?!

I’m grateful to say that Mom is still with us here, still loving her fellow creatures, and still an example to us all of how to live a “good” life, and how to be  the best kind of mother.

“As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings…” – Deuteronomy 32: 11

“A mother’s affection cannot be weaned from her child, because the mother-love includes purity and constancy, both of which are immortal. Therefore maternal affection lives on under whatever difficulties.” – from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy