Every Child is Unique - From Left to Write

This post was inspired by the memoir Raising My Rainbow by Lori Duron as she shares her journey raising a gender creative son. Join From Left to Write on September 5 as we discuss Raising My Rainbow.  As a member on the online book club, From Left to Write, I received a copy of the book for review purposes. 



If you have brothers and sisters, or you have more than one child you understand my title, Every Child is Unique.

There has long been the discussion of Nature vs. Nurture. Are children more affected by genetic inheritance of traits and characteristics and is that why they grow up the way they do, or can you change a child's traits, characteristics and path in life through the way you nurture that child?

A question as complex, compelling and unanswerable as "what came first, the chicken or the egg?"

My 27 year old son that has not seen his father since he was age 7, yet he displays so many of his father's mannerisms and has so many of his same interests, especially in the music he likes. Nature right?

This same son also has a heart filled with love for his family. His father obviously lacked that. Did my son grow up family oriented because of the way I raised him and because he grew up surrounded by family? Nurture right?

Maybe it's both, nurture and nature, hand in hand. All I know is each child is unique and should be loved and protected and nurtured and praised for the individual he/she is. No labels, no expectations, just a helping hand to keep them safe and make sure they are successful, happy, well-adjusted adults.


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The Best Laid Plans

This post was inspired by the novel Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton. After witnessing her children's school set ablaze, Grace attempts to find the arsonist as her teenage daughter lies in a coma in Lupton's suspense thriller. Join From Left to Write on April 11 as we discuss Afterwards. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes

I have to tell you that I really enjoyed this book. Many of the others in our group mentioned how difficult it was to read because they put themselves into the place of the main character Grace and her child who was in a coma, but for me it was different because of what I and my family are going through right now with my dad.

My dad who is will be 82 years of age in a little less than a month took a spill recently and fractured his pelvis. He has been residing in an assisted living facility and is slowly healing. It's been a long two weeks and I've been spending all the time I can with him. This was unexpected...of course it was, it was an accident and they wouldn't be called accidents if they were expected right?

I have always tried to make sure that if anything happens to me my kids would be protected financially. They wouldn't be rich or anything, but there would be enough for them to bury me and have funds left over for them to go to school or put a down payment on a home or something. But I've never thought about what would happen if I became hurt, in a coma or unable to take care of my physical needs and I had to be in a skilled nursing center or an assisted living facility? 

You can bet that I will begin to prepare for that now. I am learning with my dad's fall that trying to navigate the rough waters of Medicare, parts A and B and Medical and in-home health care while trying to be supportive to my dad and wanting only to spend time with him helping him to heal and not having to deal with all the other crap is tougher than you might think and I don't want my loved ones to suffer through this as well.

In the book they didn't really go into finances and insurance and how they were going to pay for hospital stays and medications, but in real life the reality of those things can devastate a family at a time when they need to be supportive to each other.

Plan people...plan. You know the old saying, the best laid plans of mice and men? Tragedy will strike all of us one day, rich or poor, good planner or bad, so wouldn't it be better to be prepared?




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Is the Grass Always Greener on the Other Side?

This post was inspired by Saturday Night Widows by Becky Aikman. After being kicked out of her widow support group for being too young, Becky creates her own support group with an unusual twist. Join From Left to Write on February 14 as we discuss Saturday Night Widows. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.



     I have to admit here and now that I got just a few pages into this book when inspiration hit me and I wrote a great post. I even wrote in the first paragraph of the post that I hoped when the time came I would have the guts to post it. 

     Unfortunately, I am a gutless wonder and I cannot post the first post I did! Well maybe I'm not gutless, but it is too personal and the personal stuff in the post is not about me. I have no problem being honest about the things that have happened to me in my life, but the story I told in that post was not my story. Well part of it was, but part of it wasn't. Have I totally confused you yet?

     So here I am. The most powerful thing that I was inspired by this book to write I can't share here.

     I guess what I will do is post a twist on the original story. I'll tell you how I think that we as women are never satisfied. Why do I think that? Let me explain.

     In the preface, the main character, Becky Aikman (also the author as this is her personal memoir) writes about how she was kicked out of her Widows Support Group on her first night in attendance. She details why she is attending and describes the setting and the room and the other woman who are there (they are all much older than she is), as well as Jonathan, the social worker who is leading the group. She writes about her feelings as Jonathan drones on for an hour telling them the 5 stages of grief and letting them know that their feelings of sadness, regret, grief, insomnia and depression are all normal.

     The last half hour of the meeting is a meet and greet, each person in the circle is invited to introduce themselves and explain how their husbands had died. The first lady spoke about the horror of her husbands illness, the pain and bed pans and how now no one understood her and they all expected her to be fine. From there it seemed to Becky that each lady was one-upping the other one and each horror story was worse than the one previous.

     When it's Becky's turn she tries to be a little more upbeat. She explains that her husband had died a year ago from a rare cancer and that he had managed to live for four and a half years with chemo and surgeries but that the last few years the cancer had spread to his brain, which made it all that much harder. But then she says, "What I want now, what I want to say is...well, I want to cheer up! Something awful happened to him, and to me, but I don't want to live in some kind of purgatory for the rest of my days because of it. I want to be happy again, don't you?"

     She looks around, hoping for support but doesn't see it in any of the faces staring blankly back at her. One of the widows begins to speak in a dignified tone and says, "I'm seventy-five years old. My husband and I had fifty wonderful years together. Now I feel like my life is over. But that young woman over there", here she points at Becky and continues saying, "she has it all! Her whole life is ahead of her! And I...I have nothing", then she breaks down into tears.

     The group begins ministering to the older woman and murmuring comforting words and shooting daggers with their eyes at poor Becky for upsetting this poor old woman and for still having her youth and her whole life ahead of her.

     Becky is thinking to herself, " Whoa, hold on babe! Fifty wonderful years might have been nice!"

    And at that point in the book, I new what I wanted to write about. But I can't share it, so I am going to put a twist on it and tell you about why women are never satisfied. So this story is about my sister and I versus my mother and my sister-in-law (SIL).

    See...my mom and my SIL are stay at home mom's and wives. They never had to work outside of the home. My sister and I have always worked, staying home just as long as our employers and disability would allow.

     Quite a few times in my life, during the growing up years of my children who are now 27 and 32; I would hear from both my mom and my SIL about how lucky my sister and I were to work outside the home. Say what??? How do you figure that? My mom and SIL would say that we were lucky because we got to get up in the morning and fix our hair and wear makeup and put on pretty office clothing and heels and nice jewelry and go to the office and actually socialize with people and go to lunch with the girls and general just be a part of society. 

     And my sister and I would look at each other and say, "We're the lucky ones?" You two get to stay home and play with your kids and clean your house and have a nice dinner waiting when your family gets home. You get to go to your kids school and help out in the classroom and bake cupcakes and do your laundry at your leisure. You get to stay home and not have to worry about doing your hair and putting on stinking makeup everyday and you can wear your pajama pants and flip flops and not worry about panty hose and callouses and corns on your poor little feet!"

     It was kind of a running battle between the four of us. A friendly battle but still...

     So that is why I think that women are never satisfied, those at home want to be at work, those at work want to be at home. We can never find the happy medium. Now at my advanced age of 54 I realize that I couldn't stay home now, I would be so bored! But I would have loved to stay home when my kids were little, to have walked them to school and helped out at their schools and be home when they came home instead of having them go to the sitter.


 

Super Mom - The Expats

This post was inspired by mystery thriller novel The Expats by Chris Pavone. Kate Moore happily sheds her old life to become a stay at home mom when her husband takes a job in Europe. As she attempts to reinvent herself, she ends up chasing her evasive husband's secrets. Join From Left to Write on January 22 as we discuss The Expats. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

I had a difficult time trying to think of what to write for my book club, From Left to Write. We don't review the actual book itself but write about something inspired by the book.

I finished the book a while ago and wondered what to write about as I didn't really enjoy the book. Don't get me wrong, the book was good, but when you read in bits and pieces like I do, it gets difficult to follow a book with so many twists and turns.

I racked my brain trying to think of something to write about and as I pondered various ideas I got to thinking about how the main character in the book, Kate Moore, is a mom. A mom with a secret identity that she keeps from her kids as well as her husband. She plans and plots and connives and her kids are none the wiser, she's always there to pick them up after school and play games with them and feed them.

It made me stop to realize just how many identities moms have, identities that their kids and many times their spouses know nothing about.

My mom for example. I used to go off to school and I never wondered what my mom did all day. I knew she did housework because our house was always clean and there was always food on the table, but what else did she do? To this day I still don't really know.

Just like my kids probably will never know exactly what I did. I wonder if my kids knew that while they were at school their mom was working as a bill collector. Calling debtors, fighting with them to get them to pay their financial obligations. I was threatened and had things thrown at me. Once a man threw a stapler that was on the counter at me (we learned not to leave anything on the counter that could be used as a weapon.) Luckily I was quick and ducked in time to avoid getting hit.

Their mom also spent many years meeting with families who had just lost a loved one in order to organize funeral arrangements. She also arranged flowers and photos in the viewing rooms and many times helped the embalmer to casket a body and helped the funeral director to load caskets into the hearse. She even drove the limo once for the family of prize fighter Jerry Quarry who once fought Muhammad Ali. 

There are also lots of other things that I did that I'm sure I never want my kids to find out about and some things that I really wish they knew about me. But what is amazing is that there are so many moms out there doing interesting and amazing things but to their kids, they are simply mom.

One thing that I always loved about working in funeral service was hearing kids give their memories and thoughts about their mother when putting together an obituary. Many times I would hear one of them say, "Really? I never knew that about mom."

Do you know what your mom did while you were in school? Was she a surgeon, an astronaut, a baker, a business woman? Did she write a book or invent a product we all know about?

Mom's are the unsung hero's of the world, except on Mother's Day of course!

FOOD...What is it good for? Absolutely Everything!

If feeding me and my brothers and sister as we were growing up had been left strictly to my mother then we would have eaten nothing but beans and tortillas morning, noon and night!! Ok, well maybe that’s a bit exaggerated, but seriously…if not for the fact that my dad was a meat and potatoes kind of man we would have starved!

See mom is a very picky eater, always has been, even as a child. Plus she doesn’t like to cook. She CAN cook…she can make some awesome dishes! She is a wonderful cook! Her chile colorado is to die for, as are her chili beans. But she dislikes cooking with a passion, probably because she dislikes eating. . .

Did your mouth just drop open in shock? How can anyone dislike eating? Well trust me she does. She eats because she has too. Food is not a big deal to her and she finds it frustrating to think of what to cook. And when she does cook she’s so sick of the smell of the food while it was cooking that she can barely manage to eat a bite or two. And leftovers?? Forget about it! She’s not touching leftovers!

My dad on the other hand will eat your arm if you don’t move it out of his way quick enough. I can remember him coming home in the mornings and my mom would make him breakfast. She would make him three or four pancakes slathered with butter and then she would fry an egg and put it on top. Dad would then smother it with maple syrup and joyfully break open the yoke and watch all the yellowy center mix with the syrup and he would scarf it down.

Dad loves food so much and eats with such relish and abandon that small children have been known to stop in restaurants to watch him eat. The way he moves his mouth and the joy in his eyes I guess are like magic and little kids can’t help but stare at him while he eats. He’s kind of gotten used to it. We have pictures of almost all the grandchildren sitting on his lap and staring up mesmerized by their Tata as he eats.

So suffice it to say that my brothers, sister and I were not brought up to be open to many kinds of foods. We didn’t have any idea when we were kids and up to young adulthood what tuna was, or onions, or fish, or beets, cauliflower, lobster, crab, shrimp, or even salads. We knew beans, tortillas, potatoes and always some kind of beef, cooked some kind of way.  We knew that dad would buy a small tin of something called sardines but we never knew what they were because he had to go outside to eat them as mom couldn’t stomach their smell!

I remember one of my first dates ever with a boy and they brought me a salad with garbanzo beans. I asked him what those were and he said, “Garbanzo beans” and I said, “No seriously…what are these?” I refused to believe him and he had to call the waitress over and ask her what they were and she said, “Garbanzo beans”, and looked at us both like we were space aliens!

So I’m reading this book for my From Left to Write book club called The Headmasters Wager by Vincent Lam and the author goes into detail about a lot of the food that was served in the home of the headmaster who was of Chinese descent living in Vietnam. I tell you what!!! Mom would sooner have died than to have lived in that home.

The food talked about in this book! Wow! Man oh man! My mom would be overwhelmed and disgusted by most of it. But some of it sounds so intriguing to me. For instance:

Squabs stuffed with cave swallow’s nests, scallops in a cognac reduction, braised and truffled lobsters, sharks fin soup, braised goose, giant abalones with fragrant mushrooms and freshly spiced jasmine flowers, giant chilled crabs, raw fish salad, kuay teow teng soup of egg noodles containing eight meats and sea foods, poached groupers, fresh sweet prawns live and wriggling in bowls to be cooked at the side of the table as each guest preferred, either deep-fried or dunked into boiling water.

I couldn't even find photos on the whole worldwideweb of most of these dishes. Here's a few that I did find.



Shark Fin Soup

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Braised Goose - Photo Courtesy of Street Directory.com

Abalone with Mushrooms, I couldn't find the Jasmine Flowers. This photo courtesy of Yelp.com

Raw Fish Salad - Photo courtesy of Food Network

Kuey Teow Teng Soup - Photo Courtesy of Elizabeth Lin

Sweet Prawns - Photo Courtesy of the YapIsland Blog

And that was all for just one party held at Tet or Vietnamese New Year! What a way to start the New Year! I guess it's not that different than the way we always started the New Year as far as strange foods because I'm sure to many of you the idea of eating Menudo would be a bit disconcerting right?

Menudo - Photo Courtesy of Victoria blog

Menudo is a traditional New Years Day breakfast food that is supposed to have medicinal purposes in that it is the cure for hangovers.

I like the description of what Menudo is that I found at the Urban Dictionary: Awesome Mexican soup made with tripe (beef stomach,) hominy, chile peppers, onions, cilantro, oregano, and a splash of lime. Some like menudo served with tortilla and "con pata"--which means with a pig's foot in there too. Menudo is traditionally eaten on Saturday mornings and has been known to cure the common hangover.

What's the strangest food you've ever had? Have you ever tried any of the foods pictured above?

Headmaster Percivial Chen is a proud Chinese born man who runs English language school during the cusp of the Vietnam War. In his refusal to accept his adopted country's turbulent times, his gamble becomes a life changer. Join From Left to Write on November 15 as we discuss the The Headmaster's Wager. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

Adventures in Funeral Service

Several years ago I worked for a funeral home. I have to say it was one of my most favorite jobs ever! I know! You wouldn't think so would you? But of all the jobs that I've ever had that was the only one where I ever felt that my being there really made a difference to someone, to whole families.

I remember the interview like it was yesterday, talk about being nervous. But the interview was nothing compared to my first day on the job. I remember coming in through the garage where the hearses were parked. I know...hearses! Can you imagine seeing hearses every single day?

But wait...that was nothing. I walked in trying to squeeze past the hearses and I look to my right into the open door and I see a very sterile white room that looked like a doctor's office. In this room I see a gurney and on the gurney I see a  body laying there very quietly. Of course this person was very quiet, this person was dead!
Trust me...I thought, "What am I doing here?"

I took a deep breath and thought about my kids and how I needed this job so I could be close to them and close to their schools and I kept on walking into the office. And every day it got easier.

I was never really thrilled about the embalming room and tried not to go into there very often, although there were times that I had to go in there when there was no one else to help the embalmer. Sometimes it was just to steady the body to position it into the casket, sometimes it was to help load the casket into the back of the hearse.

I have to give credit to the embalmers though, to them it wasn't just a job, it was a calling. They took such pride in their jobs and I saw them take bodies that had been mutilated and transforming them so that their loved ones could see them and touch them...one last time.

There are jobs that none of us want to do and then there are those that do them. Like embalmers who face death head on every day. So the next time you are at a funeral home for visitation, remember that someone treated that person laying in the casket like that person was someones father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, sister, brother, whatever that person was, they don't think of that person as a scary dead body, but as someones loved one.

Inspired by a real-life murder that threatened to topple the powerful Hapsburg dynasty in the 17th century, The Bloodletter's Daughter imagines how one young woman holds more power than she thought possible. Join From Left to Write on September 25 as we discuss the The Bloodletter's Daughter. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

Raising a Boy

You've all heard the saying, "Mother's of little boys work from SON up til SON down"? Never was that saying more fitting than when it comes to describing raising my son. My son was rambunctious and rowdy right from the beginning. He was born to fight his way through life. He even fought being born, choosing to come out butt first and having to be born through a C-section! Never was that saying more fitting than in describing raising my boy.

Here you see me fresh from the hospital holding my little bundle of joy. You can see the exhaustion in my face and the pain. C-sections are not easy, especially when you go through a long labor with a breech baby for hours and hours before the c-section.




My son was a good baby though, slept through the night almost immediately and ate well and was healthy and happy. We loved him to pieces, especially his sister.

I was fortunate that I got to stay home with him for the first two years of his life, after that I had to go back to work and had to rely on daycare. That's when the problems started. My son was VERY active and it was difficult for him to just sit and listen to a story or color or play with blocks. He had to be constantly moving so when he had to sit quietly his hands would wander and he would pull a girls hair or poke another child, anything to keep from just sitting quietly. We must have gone through seven or eight different daycare places before it was time for him to go to school.

We hoped that starting Kindergarten would be the end of the daycare problems, but they just continued on in school. There was not a day that he didn't get sent home with a note from the teacher for some reason or another. He had a journal that he would bring home every day where the teacher would right a sentence or two about his day. Every day was the same thing, "unable to sit still", "unable to keep his mouth quiet", "doesn't stay on task", "fights with the other children"...and on and on.

His dad was not as forgiving as I and it seemed like my son was constantly being punished and put in "time-out" by his dad. As he got older it was being grounded and having to stay in his room constantly with no TV, no books, nothing to do but sit on the edge of his bed. Torture for a child that can't stop moving! His dad and I were miles apart in our theory of how to raise him.

Finally things came to a head between his dad and I and we divorced, leaving me alone to raise my troubled but loving and beautiful little boy!

Things at school escalated. I met numerous times with teachers and principals and counselors and therapists and psychologists and doctors. The school called me every day to come and straighten out some problem with my son. I recall one time they called me to tell me that my son refused to leave his desk to go to the Principal's office after making a little girl cry. I watched through the window as they tried to convince him to go to the Principal's office and he just gripped his desk with those little arms and fingers and refused. The only way they could have gotten him to go would be if they had broken his fingers or his arms. The teacher, principal and janitor came out and they asked me to sign a paper that would allow them to pick up my son's desk, boy and all and carry it to the Principal's office. I was at a point where I didn't know what to do so I said ok and signed their paper. That is just one example.

And it wasn't just at school, I had problems with him at home also. I remember one Saturday outing with my son, my mom and myself. We went to do a little shopping and stopped to grab a bite to eat at a Wendy's restaurant. At some point inside the restaurant while we were eating my son got upset and said he wanted the keys to the car so he could wait in the car. He was about 8 years old at this time and I told him no, he could sit there quietly and wait for his grandmother and I to finish. He said no and walked out. My mom wanted to leave right away but I told her no, let's finish our meal, he will be back in a little bit, where is he going to go?

We finished and went out to the car assuming he would be standing by the car...but he wasn't. I walked around the building then to the stores in the area and down the block calling him. He was no where to be found. By this time I was in a panic and called the police. The police came and questioned me and my mom and radioed other officers to be on the lookout for him. About an hour later a California Highway Patrol officer found him. The CHP office had been getting reports of a little boy crossing Highway 99, a heavily traveled 3-lane highway! When the police finally caught up with him he was 5 miles from the Wendys!

The officer that brought him back to me was very nice and said "You're going to have to keep this kid on a short leash because he has no concept of what is right and what is wrong." This was a big wake up call for me!

Doctor's and therapists had been telling me they wanted to put my son on medication, on Ritalin for ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, I finally agreed, I didn't know what else to do.

Did Ritalin help my son? Well it calmed him down and made it easier for teachers and the other students to deal with him. It made it easier for him to concentrate and learn, but he hated it. He hated the way it made him feel. He would beg me not to make him take the meds and promised me that he would be good. A few times I tried sending him to school without the medication and the school would call me and know right away he had not take his medication and they asked me to come and give it to him. This is how I remember my son on Ritalin...

Did I do the right thing in medicating him? I'll never know. Will I always feel guilty that I had to resort to Ritalin to try to make my child behave, definitely. I know that I did what I felt was best, but that guilt will always be there in the back of my mind.

The good thing is that when he started junior high school he refused to take it any more and said he was going to force himself to be good...and he did. Ritalin is a thing of the past for my son, but the memory of my son's glazed eyes and swollen little face will never be erased from my mind and my heart.

This post was inspired by the book, January First, A Child's Descent into Madness and Her Father's Struggle to Save Her.

 

How far would you go to advocate for your child? In January First, father Michael Shofield and his family struggle to find the right treatment for his daughter Jani, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia at six years old. Join From Left to Write in September as we discuss the Shofield's memoir January First. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

Tomasa's Child and Homemade Flour Tortillas

When I was a little girl, there was nothing better in the whole world than a homemade flour tortilla made by my own dear mom.

I remember that she would knead the flour, lard (because we didn’t use the much lighter shortening or oil that we use now, we used big huge blocks of lard) baking powder, salt and water in a big bowl. I loved watching her hands, strong and sure working the dough.



Little Balls of Dough



Then she would make these perfect little balls of dough. I made the ones in this photo and they are not perfect at all, but mom's were. She would then line them all up on a clean dish towel, ready to be rolled out into perfectly round tortillas.



Mom would always give my sister and me our own little ball of dough which we would pretend to knead and roll out as she did. Sometimes, depending on our mood, we wouldn’t knead or roll it out; we would instead form it into animal shapes, like it was clay.



Here's the rolling out in process



When my mom was done making the family tortillas, she would have us roll out our little ball of dough and she would place it on the “comal” which was made out of cast iron and heated over the open flame on the stove. We would watch her flip our little tortilla around until it was perfectly browned on both sides. We couldn’t wait to eat them!



This is the Cast Iron Comal



Mom would slice a pat of real butter which had been softening to room temperature and sit us down, each with our little tortilla. She taught us to rip off little pieces of the tortilla and dip them into the warm, melting, sweet butter. There was nothing better! We felt as though we had cooked these tortillas ourselves, my sister and I. Sometimes we would save them for our dad to eat so he knew his little girls had been slaving away making tortillas for him.



Comal with a Tortilla



My mom was great at including us in on her regular household chores and making it fun and like a game for us. We didn’t need fancy play-doh with all the little accessories they come with now. We just needed the plain tortilla dough, our imagination and our wonderful mother by our side. My mom's name is Tomasa and I am her child.

This post is inspired by the novel Julia's Child by Sarah Pinneo. Worried about what her kids eat, Julia Bailey starts a prepared organic toddler meals business. With names like Gentil Lentil, can Julia balance work and family and still save the world? Join From Left to Write on May 24 as we discuss Julia's Child. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

 

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Could you live an entire year eating locally or the food from your garden? Barbara Kingsolver transplanted her family from the deserts of Arizona to the mountains of Virginia for their endeavor. Join From Left to Write on February 21as we discuss the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. As a member of From Left to Write, I received a copy of the book. All opinions are my own.

I have to admit that I really couldn't find myself getting into this book. Not that the subject matter doesn't seem incredibly interesting; but more the fact that right now my head is filled with problems and dilemmas and a lot of pressure at work and I find when I do have some free time to read that I really don't want to read non-fiction or instructional books. I want to get lost in a great mystery or love story. Something that takes me far, far away from real life.

That being said, I did read the first three chapters and that was enough to give me some inspiration for a post. As a member of From Left to Write we don't actually write reviews of the books we receive; instead we write a post inspired from the book itself.

Photo taken on my cell phone at one of our many, many, many stops at Rest Areas.

The book and the reason for it coincides with a recent trip that I took to Arizona with my mom and my sister Lisa. On the way while travelling through miles and miles and miles of beautiful desert my mom was inspired to share stories of her childhood with us. Normally when we would take long car trips as children it was my dad who would do all the talking. He would tell us wonderful stories of when he was a fighter pilot in the war (which he never was, he was just great at inventing stories to keep us kids occupied and avoid the inevitable "Are we there yet?" questions.)

But this trip, since my mother had our ears she started telling us stories about the things she used to eat as a child. To give you a little background on my mother, she hates food...plain and simple. Nothing would give her more joy than to have a little pill invented that would provide all the nourishment and vitamins she needs to survive and stay healthy. She's never loved cooking and sometimes just the thought having to decide on what eat when her body begs her for food even when her mind is rebelling against the thought, can make her physically sick. Let me tell you, it's not easy being me when you have to be around my mom. I joke that we're a sad pair as she HAS to eat and doesn't want ANYTHING and I want EVERYTHING and shouldn't eat ANYTHING!

So my sister and I were curious if my mom had always been such a picky eater and what she ate as a child. She said she mainly ate a lot of beans, refried with tortillas. But that she could remember as a special treat when they were able to get their hands on zucchini squash that her mother would cut them into rounds and dry them by inserting them into the needles of cactus growing up around their home. They would also grow what vegetables they could in the dry Texas land they lived on and trade with neighbors. I think of how much work that must have been. In those days the family's sole job was to come up with enough food just to feed their family!

I can't imagine myself in this day and age working 8 hours a day and then having to come home and work in a garden to raise my family's food and then picking it and cleaning it and cooking it and canning it, day after day? I see that when I buy a loaf of bread it can last for a month without any mold growing on it when back in the day I can remember my mom buying bread and if we didn't eat it within a week it was be all moldy and gross. So I understand that there are tons of preservatives and other chemicals in the foods we consume. But do I honestly want to come home and bake my own bread when I can swing by any grocery store and buy a fresh loaf? Let me answer that with a resounding "NO".

My dad was a farmer all his life. I've written posts before about all the crops that he would grow from Bell Peppers to Apricots so I know first hand how delicious fresh tomatoes straight from the field taste. I know that when I first had my daughter April that I used to buy vegetables and make her baby food for her as I wanted her only to have the best and the healthiest and the freshest. But do I want to work as hard as the Kingsolvers just to put food on the table for my family? Well, not at this point in my life, but I applaud all the young parents out there that buy organic or grow their own produce...but for me at this point in my life, my kids are all grown up and it's hard enough getting my mom to JUST EAT, let alone eat healthy!

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats

Have you ever picked up a book and then realized that laundry, shopping, television, eating, yes even BLOGGING could wait until you finished that book? Well that recently happened to me when I read the most amazing book, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats! When I got to the beginning of the very last chapter I put the book on my nightstand and turned off the light and finally went to sleep only because I was not ready for this book to end!

But more about the book itself in a later post, for now I want to write a post inspired by this book because as a member of the From Left to Write Book Club that is what we do. Not a review, but an inspiration! When Julia travels to Burma to search for her missing lawyer father, she discovers much more than she expected. Join From Left to Write on February 1 as we discuss The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker. As a member of From Left to Write, I received a copy of the book. All opinions are my own.

When I was a little girl, I could not imagine my parents ever having been any younger than they were right that very minute. I  just assumed they had been the same age forever just waiting around in limbo for me to be born. They had never been little babies, or toddlers, or preschoolers or teens or young adults. Nope, they had always just been the age they were then.

It was therefore very surprising to me to find out that they had had lives before I was even born!! *Gasp* What? No...I can't believe it. What do you mean, you remember when you went to school? What do you mean, you remember when you played with dolls and toy trucks? What do you mean, you had boyfriend/girlfriends before you married? It was just beyond my comprehension.

And then as I got older and I heard stories from my parents, or my aunts and uncles about various family events, adventures and/or secrets...well I was even more astounded! I think we just assume that nothing important could have happened prior to our being brought into this world.

But there were things that happened, marriages that took place and ended. Hearts that were broken, dreams that were shattered. Families that were formed. Loves that last forever. And I'm sure that I don't even know everything that happened in the past as yet. Every time our family gets together or I talk to a cousin or an aunt I learn something new.

This weekend I'm heading back to the homeland...our "tierra" as we would say in espanol. I'm heading back to Eloy, Arizona to attend the 50th Wedding Anniversary of my Cousin Mary Lou and her husband of 50 years, Fernando. This is a photo of them on their wedding day.

Family is so important and they are the ones that know us best. But even family doesn't know EVERY THING about us. We have secrets and there are secrets that we will never know.

In the book, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, Julia Win finds out exactly what I am writing about. She begins to find out the story of her father who went missing on the day after her graduation from law school. Her mother finds an unmailed love letter to a Burmese woman and the journey begins for Julia to find out the truth about why her father disappeared.

*****I wrote this post prior to leaving to Arizona to attend the Golden Wedding Anniversary. I just wanted to say that of course, again I learned new things about my family. The most important thing I learned is something I already knew but just had it reaffirmed for me..and that is THERE IS NOTHING LIKE FAMILY!

Expecting Adam

Being pregnant while in graduate school is no piece of cake and even more stressful to learn your unborn child has Down Syndrome. In her memoir "Expecting Adam", Martha Beck battled almost everyone over her decision to continue her pregnancy. Join From Left to Write on November 10 as we discuss "Expecting Adam". We'll also be chatting live with Martha Beck at 1pm Eastern on November 10 on From Left to Write.

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As a member of From Left to Write we don't do book reviews, we write a post, drawing inspiration from the book. I debated over what to write about in this post as the book inspired so many different thoughts and feelings.

Finally I decided that I wanted to write about abortion. In the book Martha faces abortion as one of the options in dealing with finding out the child she is carrying has Down Syndrome. There was a paragraph in the book that bothered me.

Martha and her husband John, at this point still don't know that the baby has Down Syndrome and they are dining in a restaurant and the conversation comes up what would happen if this baby was less than perfect. Her husband John says, "The worst-case scenario is that you might have to have an abortion, and that's a long shot. Everything is going to be fine." What she replies is what bothers me, "I might have to have an abortion? Since when do you decide what I have to do with my body?" Then she says, "What we've talked about is that I am pro-choice. That means I decide whether or not I'd abort a baby with a birth defect. You steer clear of this one, John-boy. It is not your call!"

Two things bother me:

1. She invited this man into her body to plant his seed and when the baby is born she expects this man to make decisions that involve this baby 50/50. Yet he has no choice, no call in deciding if the baby should be aborted simply because she is the one carrying it? It is her body that is housing the baby for 9 months so he has no say until the baby is born? He has no say in whether or not he wants HIS child's life to be taken?

2. Why do women want to allow a man the chance to "wash his hands" of a child that is to be aborted? If the child is born you can bet the woman will move Heaven and Earth to try to get this man to help support the child financially. Yet when a women gets pregnant, the awful choice of taking a life is left solely up to her? The man is not involved? The man is absolved of all guilt? Seems to me the man gets off pretty easy!

I'm not pro-choice, but to me the argument that women have used about how it's their body and their right to make a choice about what they do with their body ends when you invite a man into your body and you create a child together. Now I'm not talking about situations of rape or incest or any other situation that is not consensual, that's a whole different ball of wax. I'm talking about two people, a man and a woman having sex, making a baby, on purpose or not. They both have a right to decide what happens to that baby; both before and after the birth.

Martha and John chose to have their baby regardless and are richer and happier for it. Would everyone be able to handle a child that had Down Syndrome? No. I don't know if I could have handled it. I'm glad I never had to make that decision, but if it had come to my deciding that, I don't believe that it would have been fair to tell the father to "steer clear, it's not your call."

Imagination

In Cleopatra: A Life, Stacy Schiff digs into the history books to share with us who the true Cleopatra was. As a member of From Left to Write book club, I received a copy of this book for review. You can read other members posts inspired by Cleopatra: A Life on book club day, September 27 at From Left to Write.

I must admit I've not finished this book yet but I'm enjoying it very much. As a member of the book club, From Left to Write I'm not doing a review of the book but writing a post inspired by the book itself.

When I first saw the book's cover immediately what came to mind was my mother's pearls and the fun I had as a little girl using them to play dress up.

Growing up we always lived in a home provided by what ever ranch my dad happened to be working for as he was a ranch foreman. Because of that we usually always lived more than 8 miles from the closest town or city. Once we were 30 miles away! That was a long way in those days, now I commute that far just to get to work every day.

We also didn't have cable and the shows we did get on TV were not interesting enough to keep me and my sister and brothers busy, therefore the job of keeping us entertained and out of trouble fell to my mother who was a stay at home mom. Luckily for us she had a wonderful imagination!

I can remember her dressing us up in her many scarfs, tying them around our waists and pinning them on our heads with bobby pins. I remember that when she dressed us up in that particular outfit I always called myself Cleopatra. How I knew who Cleopatra was I really don't know, but I did. I would pin my mother's pearls like a crown around my head and do the dance of the seven veils. Well I did a dance, how much it looked like the dance of the seven veils I don't know.

My mom would use her eyebrow pencil and paint cat's eyes on me, something like this. . .

And I would always beg for a beauty mark, like this. . .

My sister usually just wanted to wear her scarfs as a cape like Superman (not Supergirl, she always wanted to be Superman) and she would play with the boys and I would be lost in my own little world of dancing and palaces, walking a tiger as a playmate as I imagined Cleopatra would.

"The key to life is imagination. If you don't have that, no matter what you have, it's meaningless. If you do have imagination...you can make a feast of straw"  ~  Jane Stanton Hitchcock

Unsaid

It seems of late that all I do is book reviews! Well be prepared for another one cause I just finished a really interesting, thought provoking book.

The book is Unsaid by Neil Abramson. This book was sent to me to review from Sarah Reck, a Web Publicist with Faith Words at Hachette Book Group

If you love animals of any kind, this book will make you cry, and will make your heart ache, but it will also give you hope that there are people in this world that love animals and will do almost anything to save and protect them.

I can't say that I've always loved animals. I've been partial to cats but never really to the point that I wanted to own one. But my daughter April is a total animal lover and through her beloved Chorizo, I have learned to love animals a lot more now. I mean just look at this sweet little face! How can you not love her and through her...other animals!

In this book Unsaid, Neil Abramson takes us into the life of Helena Colden, the main character. The twist that made this book so intriguing to me is that we see the story take place through the eyes of Helena after her death! She tells us the story while visiting those she loves after she's left them behind.

In life Helena was a veterinarian. In death now she is afraid of meeting the souls of the hundreds of animals that through her hands were euthanized. In life Helena had many pets; dogs, cats, a cantankerous pig and horse and various other animals. In death she's seeing how her animals struggle to carry on without her. Animals don't understand death and they keep waiting for her to come back to them.

Helena also takes us on a trip into the use of animals, specifically chimpanzees for testing of various drugs and medical procedures. Until I had read this book I never thought about how these animals suffer for the sake of saving a human life.

In one particularly haunting portion of the book an attorney is questioning a researcher in the use of chimpanzees for medical research. He asks the researcher how many animals she has euthanized during the span of her career. She mentions tens of thousands. Upon further questioning she says, "Ten or ten thousand animals---it has absolutely no human pathological significance." The attorney then says, "if you must euthanize ten thousand animals to save a human life, then that is an acceptable result? Even if those ten thousand animals are chimpanzees?" The researcher replies, "Oh, yes. Even if they've been trained to recite the entire Declaration of Independence. My job is to save human life. Chimpanzees will never be human. They weren't yesterday, they aren't today, and they won't be tomorrow. Nothing else matters."

I'm not an animal rights activist, but the one line that rings out to me in what that researcher says is "chimpanzees will never be human." Ok...but aren't we humans? As humans don't we feel pain, sorrow, humiliation? As humans don't we have the intelligence to realize we should protect those weaker and less intelligent than ourselves? I understand research is necessary, but at what expense? This book really made me stop and think about this.

If you get a chance to pick up this book I highly recommend it. It is a difficult read for animal lovers, but it's a book all animal lovers and those that aren't should read.