Unhappy is as unhappy does?

I once worked for a very wealthy couple who owned and operated their own business. They lived in a mansion in one of the nicest parts of town, both drove big luxury cars, and sent their kids to the best schools in the country. And when their kids graduated college, they either gave them jobs in their firm or purchased them their own companies. (Seriously. And that’s outside of graduation gifts!)

At the time I was hired, the contrast with my own life was stark. My husband had just lost his job, we had to sell our home, and worse, had to give our dog away because she was too big for apartment life. My kids had to move into a tiny bedroom together that was barely big enough for one person, much less two growing boys. It’s not an exaggeration to say they hated us both. It was a difficult period for all of us, and I couldn’t help giving in to more than a little envy when I looked at all my employers had. It wasn’t like they hid their wealth, after all. In fact, the level of their material worth was practically thrown in my face daily.

So it was with some shock that I realized, not long after I settled into the job, that these were not happy campers. These people were miserable most of the time, and they didn’t hide that either. From where I sat, just outside the wife’s office at one end of the big, long building, I could hear her conversations with her husband, whose office was at the other end of the building. (Before you think I was eavesdropping, I wasn’t. They often communicated by intercom, and often their conversations would echo down the corridor!) In fact, it wasn’t uncommon for them to conduct heated “discussions” via the intercom. This couple made it no secret that they had embraced unhappiness.

I worked for them for a full year before finding a different job, and despite the difficult and stressful work environment, I’m grateful to them for teaching me one of the greatest lessons of my life: It’s true–money does not buy happiness.

So while I thought about what to write about this week, Thanksgiving week, and about my many blessings, I thought what better topic could there be than to express thanks for those intangibles in life that bring us joy but cannot be purchased, can only be freely given, and freely received.

So here’s my “I’m grateful for” list for Thanksgiving 2011. . .

First, for God, for creating a world of such beauty, and for filling it with sights and sounds and tastes for our pleasure. He gave us food for sustenance, animals for unconditional love, and friends for helping us enjoy the good times and endure the bad.

Second, that I was somehow (through fate maybe?) born in a country that cherishes individual rights and personal freedoms. I can go to my church and worship without fear of persecution. I can travel freely. I can spend my time with whom and how I want. I’m free to pursue my dreams, or not. I’m free to succeed, and I’m free to fail and start over. Now those are blessings.

Third, I’m grateful for those who are reading this blog, and for those whose support and words of encouragement have meant so much to me over the past couple years as I’ve pursued my writing journey.

Lastly (but never least), I’m thankful for my mother. She’s no longer with us, but she taught me and my sister that the greatest, most important “thing” in the world is love. She not only preached those words, but she lived by them every day. So I thank Mom for opening my eyes to the gift of love, in all its forms, and I thank the many who have come into my life and shared their love with me.

Where would I be today without my big sister who’s been watching out for me for so many years? (I’ll reserve the whole throwing-me-off-her-rocking-horse episode for another day. <grin>)  Where would I be without my husband who cheers me on and nourishes my dreams and cares for me in so many ways? Or my children who make me so proud, not just for their accomplishments, but for the men they’re growing to be? I’m thankful for my new-found sister whose strength and courage are an inspiration to me. I’m thankful too for my extended family and friends who make me smile just to hear their voices, my “sisters” and “brothers” borne not of the same blood, but through years of shared joys and sorrows.

Both Mom and those former employers taught me that all the “stuff” in the world is meaningless without the love of family and friends, and a heart open to love. So this Thanksgiving, I wish all across the country (and around the world) a safe and joyous day. I wish you freedom to practice your faith and courage to pursue your dreams. I hope that, above all, you too will be rich as I am in the love of family and friends.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Fathers matter

This is a story for you fathers out there, a sad story about a man whose name I’ll say is Stan. I  used to know him when I was a very young girl, but we lost touch at some point, and as the years passed, he gave up trying and I gave up hoping. Stan was one of those men who married, over and over…sometimes the same woman multiple times. He didn’t stay with one wife for too long—a couple years with this one, a couple with that one—leaving his progeny (three daughters and a son) several thousand miles apart.

That type of behavior might seem odd for many of us, but for Stan it was normal. It might seem uncaring too, if one were to view the situation from the perspective of the deserted child. But if one looks from the perspective of the deserting parent, things change, and we begin to understand that Stan never understood that his presence, his existence here on earth, mattered to those who loved him. We see that, somehow, Stan thought he wasn’t missed.

To Stan it might have come as a shock to learn that his comings and goings affected those he left behind. He seemed to think he lived his life in a void where others felt no pain, no disappointment and no sense of loss when he disappeared for months, or years, at a time. He apparently didn’t comprehend that his daughters, and probably his birth family, yearned for a visit from him, or even a call or a letter. He assumed those connections came with the obligation of financial support. And money? Well, that he didn’t have. Or maybe he just didn’t care to share what he had. And he was right, he did have a financial obligation to his children, but what he didn’t realize is that they loved him with or without cash in hand. So he turned his back. He walked away. And he rarely looked back.

When he did surface from time to time, it was always with assurances of love, and his daughters believed him, at least at first. They held out hope with each call, each letter, that it might be the rekindling of a relationship. And each time they were disappointed. Oh, he always had the right words ready, but he didn’t seem to understand that the words “I love you,” even when spoken in a vacuum, are powerful. They’re words that children hope to trust in, and long to return, in person.

I can only think that Stan must have believed himself so terribly unlovable that it was right to keep himself from the very people who cared about him the most, and in doing so, he deprived his children of a father. Despite the cartoonish depiction of some fathers in today’s media, I believe that strong, loving fathers are vital to the health of a family. Little boys need their fathers to teach them right from wrong, to show them how to be men, to make the tough choices that living a righteous and honorable life call for. Little girls need their fathers too, to teach them to respect and value themselves, to not let others, especially boys or men, take advantage, to look those boys/men in the eye and convey to them to tread carefully where those daughters are concerned. But I don’t believe Stan understood how important he was to his children. I don’t believe he ever grasped the value he could bring to their lives. Because he stayed away.

See, I told you it was a sad story, but what’s even sadder is that Stan projected that un-need for family contact to his daughters. Somehow he assumed that they, like him, were happy going it alone and staying out of touch with the others. He must have assumed that they not only accepted his absences, but that they had no need to know each other or his birth family—his parents, his six brothers and sisters, assorted aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces. So he kept them apart in what seems almost a deliberate effort to keep the various “fruits” of his various paternal “branches” from touching, each other or the larger family.

Fortunately, there’s a silver lining to Stan’s sad story, at least in part. As much as Stan tried to keep his children apart, tried to spread that “they don’t love me/they don’t need me” attitude that he must have carried, at least his daughters—separated by distance, years, environment and circumstances—inherited some of his cunning. They thought about each other over the years, stared at surnames in the phone book, longing for the guts to start calling and asking if they were in any way related. They put names in search fields of the various social media sites in hopes of getting a hit, and from time to time left cookie trails for the others to find.

Finally, a few weeks ago, one of the trails was discovered, and the two branches, who’ve been separated for more than 40 years, were able to connect, were able to speak via the wonders of modern telecommunications technology, were able to hear each other’s voices for the first time, to share memories of their mutual father and how his life has affected them.

I can’t help but find it ironic that the biggest clue that led them to find one another was Stan’s obituary. So today, at least one daughter is left wondering if he’s somewhere in the spirit world shaking his fist at the gods of technology for allowing this to happen. Or maybe his perspective has changed. Maybe he can now see how very wrong he was all those years to keep himself apart from them, and them from each other. Maybe now he can see that family mattered—he mattered—and maybe he can be happy for those he left behind.

I hope you’re at peace, Stan. I’ve never really known you, but maybe, just maybe, I can now begin to learn about you and your parents, your brothers and sisters, and your other children. Maybe I can begin to understand the thought processes that made you the person you were and that made you act as you did. I pray that now, finally, you can begin to feel the  love that somehow escaped you here on earth. I pray that now, maybe, I can begin to forgive.

They Called Him Jackie

Eighty-three years ago today, just over a year before the big stock market crash of 1929, a baby boy was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. His parents, John and Mary, named him John as well, carrying forward a custom the family had brought with it from Wales during the prior century. Somehow they must have known he would be a special man, so they dubbed him Jack, or Jackie, to give him his own identity.

Jackie’s parents were members of the working class, and I have to assume the little family struggled financially in those days during The Great Depression while John worked an assortment of odd jobs to put food on the table. In fact, it was another eight years before they added to their family, having two boys in quick succession, and Jackie was sent to live with nearby relatives to ease the financial burden. He never complained to me about those days; still, he learned early on to shoulder responsibilities that we would never give a child in today’s world.

When his father, a veteran of two prior wars, joined in the fight against Hitler, Jackie quit school to help support his mother and brothers. He never went back to school, never earned his high school diploma, a fact that shamed him the rest of his life. But he was a humble man, a selfless man, and taking time for himself to continue his education probably never crossed his mind. Instead he enlisted in the Army Air Corps (convincing the recruiters he was older than he was) and served in Okinawa at the end of World War II. During that time he learned about electricity and electrical systems, and when his tour was over, he went home to Scranton where he got a job in an electrical supply company and met Lois, his bride-to-be, one afternoon on the way to the movies.

They fell in love quickly, but it would be some time before they could have their happily-ever-after moment. Lois contracted polio during the big outbreak of the early 1950s and was told she’d never walk again. With a lot of grit, and the love of her Jack, she fought back and walked down the aisle as his bride (in a packed church) several years later.

After a quick honeymoon trip to New York City, Jack and Lois moved into an apartment on the second floor of her parents’ home and set up housekeeping. In a couple of years, they had their own baby boy, and claiming there were too many “Johns” in the family already, named him James. Six weeks later, Lois’s father died while he was watching baby James, and they moved in with her mother to help support her, financially and physically, a situation that lasted until her death at the age of 91.

Those weren’t always easy years for Jack and Lois. Money was tight, and tensions sometimes ran high, as they do with any normal family, but they were happy. Then, Lois’s muscles, overworked and overtired from battling the effects of the polio for so many years, began to fail, little by little. By the time she was in her late fifties, she was wheelchair bound, depending on Jack for many of her needs. Yet the love that had seen them through those early days of her disease stood strong, and their devotion toward each other only grew.

It was during that period that I met James, my husband-to-be, and coming from a single-parent home as I had, I was amazed to witness a love like that, still solid after more than thirty years despite all the struggles they’d seen. James and I fell in love, and when he asked me to marry him a few years later, I figured any man who’d been raised in a family like that–where marriage meant a true commitment, where family stood by each other even when it would be easier to do otherwise–was someone to hang on to. (Smiling here.) So we married and I folded myself into their life.

It was some time before I became comfortable with my new father-in-law. He was a quiet man and said little to me in those early months, yet he went out of his way to care for me too. In bad weather he’d pick me up so I wouldn’t have to walk the ten blocks or so to my job. He fussed at James whenever I went out alone and worried for both of them until I returned home. Before long, we began to grow close, and at some point I started calling him Dad.

Time passed, James and I moved from Pennsylvania to the D.C. area, and it was while we lived there we learned that Lois had been diagnosed with uterine cancer. It was yet another struggle for the couple, surgery followed by debilitating radiation treatments, but together they fought, and together they made it through.

It wasn’t long after that before we had our own news to share: We were to be parents! We weren’t anywhere near financially ready for a baby, and my father-in-law knew that. He and Lois made the five-hour trip to visit and immediately took us shopping for maternity clothes and baby needs. They didn’t have the money any more than we did, and her health wasn’t exactly robust, but that’s what their version of family did–they sacrificed to help out.

When our own baby boy arrived, we named him John, after Dad, and I don’t think we seriously considered another name. The two became best friends very quickly, despite the physical distance between us. It was the same story when our second son was born, and if we were more like George Foreman, we might have named him John as well, but instead we chose David, Dad’s father’s middle name.

Life was busy for us. We’d moved from D.C. to New Jersey, near my family, and our hours filled with work and the boys’ activities. But we tried to visit often, and with each trip to Scranton, we could see that Lois’s health was failing, despite what her doctors would claim. Then one evening we got a call from a nurse in their hospital. Lois had gone in for a routine procedure, and during the procedure it was discovered that her cancer had returned and had consumed much of her internal organs. The pain from the disease had been masked by her nerves deadened from the polio. She died during the night, leaving her shocked and bereft husband and son at her bedside.

We begged Dad to come live with us, but after spending the bulk of his married years living with his mother-in-law, he’d decided a couple needed privacy, and he refused. I don’t think either of us would have minded. In fact, we worried about him being alone. After about a year, he took up with a lady friend, though, so I decided he needed his privacy too…and I was glad for it! He lost her to cancer several years later, and just when I thought he might make the move to stay with us, his health began to fail. The diagnosis: cancer, of course. Dad fought valiantly, as he had so often in his life, but in the end the disease won, and we lost.

My husband lost a father that day, my children lost a grandfather, and I lost a man who was more a father to me than my own had ever tried. But more than that, the world lost a great man. He might have been of humble means, and a simple upbringing, but Jackie knew what was important in life, knew what the true treasures of life were. He lived by those values, and he taught them to his son and grandsons who bore the family names. I can only hope they too will carry his legacy to future generations.

Happy birthday, Dad. We miss you.