I feel the need to start #wombsplaining things, and I hope my smart writerly researching friends will do the same.
1. The medical system and social care network obviously let down a boy who grew up to become a murderer of 17 people yesterday in Parkland Florida. If you look at a picture of him, you can see that there may be physical reasons for the adjustment problems he had. He looks like he may have some of the characteristics of FAS. He was adopted. Both of his adoptive parents died. He’d been expelled from school and identified as a potentially dangerous individual to the school. Our system let him down and because of that 17 people, thus far, are dead. Hundreds or thousands have been traumatized because of this one mass murder.
2. I am nauseated when I see Governor Rick Scott talking about the well-being of his constituents. This man has no concern for people, he was the CEO of Columbia/HCA during the time when the company committed the largest Medicare/Medicaid fraud in U.S. History. The company paid $1.6 billion criminal and civil fines for Medicare fraud. The people who committed this crime went, literally, Scott-free. Corporate crime takes money away from the healthcare and social support systems that is desperately needed for dealing with the health and well-being of the cast-offs of American society (rightists often call thsee things entitlements.)
3. The crimes committed by Scott’s company occurred when yesterday‘s shooter was in utero and a small child. Now this immoral corporate white man is “guiding” the state in which there have been two mass shooting recently and dodging questions on gun safety.
4. If the shooter was given up for adoption, unwanted, and suffered from birth defects, I wonder if his birth mother thought about abortion? I wonder if she had access – physical and economic – to all the medical care she needed? (I am allowed to say this as I was an unwanted child and was psychologically tortured by my mother because I was unwanted. No child should have to live with knowing they are unwanted. It warps them.)
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Perhaps corporations should be killed (dissoved without the ability of owners/board etc. to reform corporate entities) when they do things that kill.
Perhaps immoral people like Scott behind corporate crime should not be allowed into leadership positions ever again.
Perhaps we should not allow weapons of war designed to kill great numbers of people rapidly to be sold to civilians.
Perhaps people should be able to get the healthcare they need regardless of their SEC.
Women Who Left Us in 2017
We lost so many strong, even iconic, women in 2017. And so many of them received little to no public media attention in this year of seemingly non-stop discussion about men.
Maggie Roche, of the Roche Sisters, left us at age 65 in January.
Here’s the NYT article briefly chronicling her music career.
Mary Tyler Moore
We heard about Mary Tyler Moore’s passing this year, but most coverage reminisced about her roles. What about the woman who brought those iconic roles to life? The best short summary I have found is under the subheading The True Legacy of Mary Tyler Moore in Forbes article about her passing.
Kate Millett
Radical feminism, anyone? Second wave? Kate Millet was at the front of the wave. She passed in September. Her last interview, only 6 days before her death, is in the New Yorker.
Edie Windsor
Edith Windsor, Edie, brought groundbreaking same-sex marriage case to the Supreme Court, and DOMA, left us in September. She was 88. I recommend her site for info about DOMA, Edie and Thea, and Their Long Engagement.
Other Inspiring Women Who Passed in 2017
Mary Anderson, Cofounder of REI, with her husband, not only started the business as a cooperative buying/import company when they could not find good mountaineering equipment to support their shared passion for climbing. The sport and business must have been good to her, she lived to be 107.
Harriette Thompson, two-time cancer survivor began running marathons at age 76.
She died at age 94 in October.
Nancy Zieman, of Sewing with Nancy also passed on this year. I am writing a special piece on all she gave to regular women. It will be published before year’s end.
Who passed on this year that you would like to honor?
When Christmas is Sad
My Take on Holiday Sadness
A huge hurt builds inside me. My father died on Christmas Day 1986. It is a familiar, old hurt. This past year freshly layered that hurt with new hurts and loss. All four of my brothers have passed on. One in 1998, another in 2005. Mom died in 2007. Then I quickly lost my last two brothers in the Autumn of 2014 and the Summer of 2015. My remaining sisters-in-law passed on in the past year. The last biological relative of the generation beyond me, my father’s youngest sister, died in March.
No one tells you that the odds of ending up alone, as the remaining person in your family of birth, are fairly high, if you were the youngest person in your family. It can really suck to be the youngest sibling in a family. It does suck to have your dad die on Christmas Day.
Death is playing on my mind differently this year. Someone I once loved died a year ago today. Just before Christmas. I did not know that the person I lived with for 13 years, spanning my 20s, my youth, died, apparently unexpectedly, last year just past mid December. Some of my friends knew and did not tell me Our ever-so-long-ago break-up did not go well, so to speak, and I was dead to him after 1988. I respected his wishes and never contacted him. The weird thing is that he stopped interacting with anyone who knew me too. That hurt a lot of people who had considered him a close friend.
Those same friends who he wrote off due to their connection to me, chose to keep me unaware of his passing until after my daughter’s wedding just the day after Christmas. That was quite considerate actually. Old friends who came to the wedding celebrated only the couple, and talk of mortality was to be found anywhere.
I have my dear Hubster, and a wonderful daughter and son-in-law. I have an amazing and talented step-daughter, her husband and their twin seven-year-old daughters. I am not alone. There is much sweetness surrounding my bittersweet memories of Christmases Past.
I am just 60. My mother lived to be 92. I could live for a long time as the only one who remembers my childhood family holidays. Childhood memories of fall and winter get-togethers become cloudy through time. There is no one left to shine sunlight through the clouds on old stories, desserts, family jokes, no one to laugh with about family eccentricities. I can tell the stories to my children and grandchildren, and I do.
But there is just no way around it. Losing a loved one is sad.
Actions That May Help Make Christmas – a Little – Better
Holidays can be very, very tough. I know I’m not the only one who feels this. But there are a host of other ways to redirect my attention, remember fondly, and create new memories.
Some of the things I do that seem to help when I’m feeling down:
- Be kind.
- Ask people how they are doing.
- Smile.
- Give hugs.
- Take it easy, don’t do more than you want to or can do.
- Allow yourself a good cry, don’t cut it short.
- Then dust yourself off and do something to make someone else happy.
- Find an activity that brings you cheer.
- Allow the cheer of others to creep into you.
We can learn to have a sadness and to be happy at the same time. Life is bittersweet for those blessed with long lives.
Merry Christmas, or happy whatever you may celebrate!
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An earlier version of this post was published Dec. 2015
Six Years of Water Under the Bridge
Tucson in mid-late morning. I’m thinking about a small bit of the movie Jackie I which I watched at the Loft this past week. I’m drinking coffee and browsing for mention of the wanted posters created by Kennedy opponents in Dallas before the assassination.
Trying to verify before publishing anything about it (Yep, I’m like that.) I ran across Joyce Carol Oates tweet about the mention in the movie Jackie of wanted posters of JFK in Dallas before the assassination. In the film Lady Bird asks her if she wants to change clothing, remove the now iconic pink suit, before landing in D.C. but Jackie says that she was going to deplane in the blood spattered Chanel suit so that his detractors who put up the wanted posted accusing JFK of treason to see what they’ve done.
Oates’ tweet sent a chill through me. The chill then reminded me that today is January 8th. It has been six years since the Tucson mass-shooting that killed 6 and wounded so many.
I went to twitter and created a moment, which are linked series of tweets to tell a story, and put Oates’ post with other posts about the call for targeting Giffords and the assassination attempt on her life.
I have been deeply moved and troubled lately by discussions of post-truth America where large swaths of our population believe Orwellian constructions of reality that fly in the face of logic and human memory, and that have gone unchallenged by the Fifth Estate.
We all frame events. Those who can afford it or have the sway to create public relations campaigns can change perception about events and how history is written as is shown in by the creation of “Camelot” through Jackie Kennedy’s efforts.
This has always been the case with pomp and circumstance to remind lowly commoners of the gulf between them and royals.
But the trend in America, and in other nations, to use media to straight out lie, subvert democracy, and incite violence against groups with different beliefs from yours as well as to incite attempted assassination of political leaders is a horse of an entirely different color. The horse is red. Soviet red. Nazi red. Conservative red. The red of blood shed six years ago by friends of mine after political vitriol helped motivate an unstable person to target a Congresswoman.
Poetry as Memoir
There are many ways to preserve relationships in written records. For those who have hundreds of pages of personal poetry, take the time to peruse what you have captured about family and events set in motion by family members as you create any retrospective about your life or family.
Poetry often captures what prose cannot evoke. When putting together a family history, bring relationships alive with the poetry you created.
This following example links generations and captures what I felt as I made a phone call to an elderly aunt to inform her that my eldest brother had passed away.
In loving memory of my big brother
James L. Hill
Born August 22nd, 1939
Died July 22nd, 2015
Oh Jimmy
you
among those who first greeted me
in life
were the last to leave
family
as complicated as it comes
eldest brother
but last to leave
once we were five
i remember you
i remember you all
in my superstitious brain
i wonder if they met you
Max said Dad and Dave
were there to go with him
i took black cloths from mirrors
months ago
though they draped each memory of you
until today
i only now
reflect on life without you
you always remembered my birthday
and i always knew you loved me
and you were loved
all your life
our aunt, elderly, so frail
closer in age to you
than you to me
fragile tremor in her voice
just said, “oh Jimmy,” when i told her
i swear i could see you as a baby
in her arms in her mind
as she said it
I had never heard you called that
first born son, to first born son
my sweet, gullible brother
teased or bullied for your kindness
your faith
you loved without measure
happiness bursting across your face
whenever you saw me
in spite of your pain
your years of pain
i recited
a buddhist prayer
for me
a psalm for you
the year of mourning ended
in the dark quiet of this day before the dawn
though tears formed like dew to meet the day
—Nancy Hill, 22 July 2016
If you are creating a digital record or history or memoir, consider hyperlinks to images with captions that add concrete information to elements of the poem.
For example, I might link to a an image of my fathers family before he left home or to my brothers.
Tucson, Five Years On
Lives changed as lives were lost five years ago today when Tucson changed forever. It was not the first time Tucson opened her arms and gathered survivors of mass gun violence to her breast to hold and heal families in her embrace.
October 29th 2002
Robin E. Rogers, Barbara Monroe, and Cheryl McGaffic, all instructors in the U of A School of Nursing were gunned down by a disturbed and failing student who also shot himself. All died. This was the first time Tucson met with a mass shooting in recent history. A student killing his instructors and professors was personally unsettling. My husband is a Professor at this same University.
January 8th 2011
A gunman attempting to assassinate U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords killed six other Tucsonans: Christina Taylor Green, Dorothy “Dot” Morris, John Roll, Phyllis Schneck, Dorwan Stoddard, Gabriel “Gabe” Zimmerman.
13 other people were gunned down, but lived.
January 8th 2016
Five years later, today, there will be bell ringings and memorial services at a few places in Tucson. A survivor invited me to attend the bell ceremony at the university hospital down the street at 10:10 a.m. I want to attend.
This day reminds me of the precious, tenuous nature of life. My daughter is in Tucson with her fiancé and in the few days we have together while she is here, we are planning her wedding that will take place later this year. So while I cannot be at the commemoration, I write, remember and hold those who were there in the light.
No one wants to be defined by violence. No person. No community. We cannot help but be shaped by our histories. What we do and how we live in the moment, in all those precious moments of life, are how families and communities, define ourselves. We must not forget the moments that shaped us, but it is far more important that we live fully and dedicate ourselves to changing what we can so that tragic moments need not recur.
Friends as Survivors
Suzi, Mary, Jim, Ron and Gabby range from friends, to friends of friends, to acquaintances, to a Representative I’ve lobbied and met with, and protested. I, like so many other Tucsonans, have their backs and are grateful for the strength and grace they continue show as you put one foot in front of other, in some cases after having to relearn how to do so.
Community
Our personal legacies and community legacy interweave around this unwanted anniversary. Legacy draws us together in the small town that is at the core of this large city. That legacy reaches back beyond historic times. There have been people here for thousands of years. Legacy is palpable here where cultures and histories blend into community. The community is sad but strong. Tucson grieves. Tucson heals. Together Tucson grows together into a stronger place towards a better tomorrow.