Thoughts from a Veteran's Mom

We were never an especially military family. Oh, my dad and uncles served. Growing up, I heard about Uncle Jack’s tough experience in Korea (he was training at Quantico before being shipped over, and his best friends were sent on ahead. By the time he arrived, they had all been killed). As for Dad, he spent time in both the Army and the Navy, though the closest he got to action was peeling potatoes on a base in Florida. On Steve’s side, his six uncles (his mom’s brothers) all went off to fight in World War II (and miraculously, all returned safely). While his brother Phil was career Navy, Steve himself had a high draft number, and he didn’t go to Vietnam. 

USNA Induction Day swearing in ceremony with Uncle Phil

Raising our five children in a post-draft world, I honestly never thought any of them would go into the military—especially our free spirited Evan. But that’s exactly what happened. At 18 he was accepted to the Naval Academy, and decided to attend. That June he began the dreaded Plebe Summer. It was a tough few months, during which he was allowed only two very brief phone calls home. But he stuck it out, then and for the next four years, graduating as an officer in the U.S. Navy in 2008. There followed six years of service—“nuke” school in Charleston, SC, four years on the nuclear submarine the USS Greeneville out of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and a year at the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington, DC. 

Proud of him as I was (and am), I never felt I really fit in with the other moms, many of whom had husbands, fathers, brothers, who were also USNA alums. My military knowledge came from TV, movies and books. As an actor, I kept thinking of Evan’s uniforms as “costumes.” Because he couldn’t divulge much of where he went and what he did, both on the Greeneville and later at ONI, I was left to imagine (and to worry, especially when the sub was underway for weeks at a time). 

Evan left the Navy two years ago. He got a master’s degree from Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, and has been home since August. He will soon leave again I know, but it has been wonderful to see him. 

I have always admired and respected those men and women in the military, and I ache for the moms whose kids are in harm’s way, or who have been hurt or killed. I feel lucky indeed that our son came through safely. I remember and honor these special people who sacrifice so much. I pray for a world at peace. 

So thank you, Evan, and your fellow veterans, for your service. May we better care for our vets as they return from conflict, so many of whom are physically or mentally injured. May we think about our veterans every day, not just November 11^th. And may we each do our part to bring about an end to war, forever.

Evan and Sheridan in Annapolis

Ars Longa Vita Brevis

“Art is long, life is short.” Words that resonate down the millennia. And life was indeed short back then, but how many incredible works of art survive! A trip to the museum is cause to marvel at the talent of our forebears, dating so far back. Carved in stone, drawn on cave walls. Every artist, from tragic Vincent Van Gogh’s disturbing landscapes to the soaring joy of Calder’s mobiles, made his or her mark, and their masterful creations live on.

When I was little I had no qualms about drawing whatsoever. I exulted in cracking open a new box of 64 Crayolas, and wore each crayon to a nub. It never occurred to me that I was not a gifted artist—indeed, it did not occur to me that being “good” was important. I just yearned to express myself on paper, and my output was impressive if not high quality. The few pictures that survived my childhood attest to my preferred subject matter (super religious) and my attention to detail. At some point in the middle grades, my art came to a halt, and with a few exceptions I have not created a painting or drawing since.

The same was true for my kids. Everyone started out creating like crazy (Sheridan holds the world record for most sketches of a lighthouse, all crafted during naptime—I didn’t care if they slept, I just needed an hour of peace and quiet). But then came maturity, and self-consciousness. Suddenly they stopped attacking blank paper with markers, and my collection of their masterworks abruptly ceased.

What happens when we become hesitant, when we start comparing ourselves to others? For most of us, it means we stop making art, period. Classmates who have what is widely recognized as talent keep moving forward. The rest of us relegate our creations to the trash, and move ahead with our non-artistic lives.

But what if we kept at it?

We can’t all be like my sister C, a professional artist whose creations are truly beautiful. But we can keep tapping in to our right brain, and rejoice in what we produce. Our results may never hang at the Met, but who cares? We do art for ourselves, and for future generations who may treasure what we put down. Or not.

Ars longa, vita brevis. Open a box of crayons and connect to your inner genius. I promise it will be a worthwhile exercise. Someday, an archeologist may discover my child’s soaring portrait of of a Ninja Turtle ballerina, and gain insight into the 1980’s culture. In any event, I will be the Mom who keeps it, and holds it close.

I challenge you to search your keepsake boxes and look at your childish artworks. I guarantee you they will be wonderful in your eyes. And after all, we none of us know how we will be remembered many years from now. So why not sketch a love song to the future? No time like the present. Truly.

The Road Taken

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood/and knowing I could/Not travel both/and be one traveler, long I stood/and looked down one as far as I could/to where it bent in the undergrowth.”—Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

While life may seem to be haphazard and rather random, an awful lot happens because of choices we make. We stand at different crossroads every day, deciding our next move, our next direction. It can be as trivial as ordering dinner from a menu, or as consequential as where to apply to college, or which job to pursue. There are, so often, choices to be made. And even with the wrong choices, we can choose our reaction to them. 

I look back on my 59 years on this planet, and I can pinpoint several major crossroads I faced, and the consequences of my choices. My marriage to Steve was certainly one of them. We met when I was just 15, were engaged right after I graduated from high school, and I was a bride at 20. That forever commitment at such a young age was my choice, ill-advised as it may have appeared to others. That road I took, that we took together, has been the greatest adventure of my life. I made other, attendant, choices: not finishing college, going into the theatre. Waiting seven years to have children, and then having five of them in quick succession. Moving far away from my family. At each crossroads, I would look both ways, before selecting my path. Sometimes I just glanced hastily, or couldn’t see clearly…those were choices I came to regret.

We came to a crossroads as a nation yesterday, looked both ways and made our choices. When all was said and done, we collectively started down a new road, some with joy and some of us with fear and trembling. It was, electorally if not popularly, America’s choice, and right now it’s hard to gauge if some people looked hastily, or unclearly, before selecting. But it doesn’t matter now. What matters is how we all deal with this choice.

Here’s how I plan to deal with it: I plan to counter hatred with love, wherever I see it. I plan to embrace my fellow travelers on our road, whatever their color or ethnicity, whatever they believe and whoever they love.  I plan to listen to the pain of those who have experienced a different America than I have, be they Muslim immigrants or white unemployed coal miners. I truly believe we are better than our divisions, and more than our differences. And as I walk into an unknown future, on a brand new path, I take strength from the many millions of companions on the road with me, Republicans and Democrats and Independents. I pray for safety, all of our safety, in the days and years to come. May we more than survive. May we thrive. And may the road we have taken lead to surprising blessings as we navigate it, together. 

My hope for the future

Let Us Pray

Not to brag, but I have memorized TONS of prayers. Of course I know the Lord’s Prayer (in English AND Latin, ahem!) Courtesy of my Catholic upbringing, I am also a whiz at “Glory Be” and “Hail Mary” (which I mutter on repeat throughout any driving trip in the dark/rain.) There is another Mary favorite, “Hail Holy Queen,” and the curious “Prayer to St. Jude” which we intoned weekly at St. Jude’s RC Church. Part of it says: “the name of the traitor who delivered thy beloved Master into the hands of His enemies, has caused thee to be forgotten by many. But the church honors and invokes thee universally as the patron of hopeless cases, of things despaired of…” Never could figure out whether that meant Judas had been canonized, or if we were praying to a totally different guy with the same name. Oh well, a prayer is a prayer, right? 

As an adult that I began to think of prayer in simpler, more direct terms: just plain talking to God. Not that I talked to God all that much, sad to say—at least not when things were going well. It was when the chips were really down that I would finally pour out my heart, and sometimes I found that comforting. But (many) other times I felt as if I was talking to an imaginary personage that I was asking to fix the broken things in my life. If conditions improved, I would say a quick and breezy “Thanks a bunch, Lord! Catch you later!” and then go back to my own concerns. If things did not get better I would feel angry, even bitter.  

In recent years, my attitude towards prayer has evolved a bit more. Some of it has to do with my forays into silent meditation, my attempt to come into God’s presence without making a peep. But a lot changed when I stopped calling prayer talking TO God, and started to think of it as talking WITH God…inviting God into a back-and-forth conversation. Suddenly I felt closer to God, as I would to a dear friend (albeit a friend I sometimes disagreed with).  

I haven’t abandoned the rote prayers totally, but more and more I trust that my own words are enough. And sometimes no words at all is fine—I try to keep the connection going as I load the dishwasher, vacuum the carpet, cook dinner. The Celtic tradition

Prayer? Why not?

teaches that everything we do is sacred, no matter how mundane. We are steeped in eternity, every minute of the day; we just need to stop and recognize the signs of the divine all around us. In that way, every breath we take becomes a prayer. 

However we perceive prayer, I believe the important thing is to do it. Whether we are repeating ancient words, chatting companionably, or silently changing the sheets, I trust that there is a loving spirit in the universe, that rejoices anytime we reach out to make contact. 

Soundtrack of My Life

I never sing around the house. Oh, sure, when the kids were babies I would warble the odd tune but as soon as they were out of diapers the concert was over. I don’t hum, either, so unless I am yapping (which is admittedly often), I am silent. And I’ve often wondered why. But then I remember my mom, and it all comes clear. 

Joanie knitting (and probably humming)

 Ours was a noisy home, and while we girls fighting accounted for some of the cacophony, the main culprit was Joanie. Her every activity was accompanied by song, and when she wasn’t singing she was humming. The louder the hum, the more annoying she found the chore to be (when she was ironing it sounded like the rumble of thunder). She sang when happy, sad and in between. And her repertoire? Nary a children’s song in the bunch. Instead, we were treated to the music of the 1940’s. “My Funny Valentine,” “All of Me” and my personal favorite, “Two Sleepy People,” which contained lyrics like ‘Here we are/out of cigarettes/holding hands and yawning/look how late it gets.’ For Mom, being out of cigarettes would be unbearably sad, so she would sing that one in a more mournful tone.

As a result of listening to Mom’s own personal Hit Parade, my sisters and I knew most of the Rodgers and Hart catalogue, with some Cole Porter thrown in for good measure. When musical tastes changed, she did not; I couldn’t imagine her ever tackling Elvis or the Beatles. I think the era of her songs was the happiest time in her life in a lot of ways, and singing them brought those good feelings back. She’d worked in New York City for years before she met Dad, and we always heard about her escapades as a secretary at Lenox Hill Hospital and at NBC. Her love life was a busy one indeed, filled with fabulous nights on the town. But then, marriage at 29, and to a man she had only known a few months, followed almost immediately by back-to-back pregnancies, was a stunningly rapid life change for her. That she loved us deeply I have no doubt, but there was no mistaking her wistfulness as she recalled her young single days gone by. 

Mom died in our house, peacefully, after a short illness. She knew her end was coming, and was able to say goodbye to all of her beloved grandkids. My sister C and I took turns staying by her bedside all night so she’d never be alone. And when the time for singing was done, there was still a serenade left: Evan had recorded himself playing her favorite tunes, and that was all she wanted to listen to. And so, the soundtrack of my life, accompanied her into Heaven.

Mom the way I most remember her looking

 Sometimes I regret not singing to my children, but that’s not me. It was, however, my mother. And when I miss her, I can listen to “Till There Was You” and feel her presence, still.