Month: December 2024

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After Sixty Years, I Finally Saw the Truth

One Thanksgiving my mother hid a reel-to-reel tape recorder in the dining room closet and made us kids promise to keep it a secret. The room was a mess of toys any other day but had been tidied and decorated for the feast. The table we used for art projects was extended and covered with a white linen tablecloth and crowned with Mom’s centerpiece of fruit and nuts. The brass candle sticks were polished and gleaming.

As we all sat around the table, and before Dad carved the turkey, Granny stood, closed her eyes, inhaled through flared nostrils, raised her chin, then launched into her traditional, impromptu grace: “Dear mighty, all-powerful, merciful God, You set before us this beautiful turkey that we poor, frail, imperfect creatures will enjoy through Your grace and goodness. May we be truly kind and good to one another, rather than the wretches we tend to be, and may we…” On and on she went until Mom was snorting with laughter. My older brother, sister, and I chimed in.

Granny opened her eyes and stared at us, unsmiling. “Why are you all laughing?” 

Mom was good at playing games, and even though this one felt a little mean, I thought Granny would be amused.

Mom slid open the closet door to reveal the spinning tape recorder. She quickly rewound it and replayed Granny’s prayer while the four of us giggled without restraint. My two aunts and one uncle, my father and grandpa remained silent. I liked Granny’s prayers, but Mom was good at playing games, and even though this one felt a little mean, I thought Granny would be amused.

Instead, she stiffened and straightened her shoulders. “That was cruel, Penelope!” I had never seen her so angry. And then she looked at me with injured eyes, and said, “And I thought you were my little darling.” 

I wanted to crawl under the table and never come out.

“It was just a joke, Mother,” Mom said, but the hurt buzzed in the air as we passed our plates in silence.

I’d been blind to the truth ever since that day

For years I blamed my mother for the pain and shame I felt in that moment. It wasn’t until I shared that story with a friend and mentor that I saw another truth I’d been blind to ever since that day over sixty years ago.

“What a heavy burden to place on a child,” my friend said, speaking of my grandmother. “Imagine the kinds of things she must have said to your mother as a child.”

I’d never considered that story from that perspective. I’d always blamed my mom for being cruel and sucking me into it. Goodness, yes, I’ve known Granny was a difficult mom, very judgmental, but only intellectually considered the matter. I’d never felt the scalding hurt because that day I immediately transferred the blame to my mom.

I was a difficult teen, to be sure.

This new perspective, that Granny had placed an undue burden on me, a little girl of seven, made room in my heart to feel compassion for my mother. How conveniently have I forgotten over the years that Granny’s advice to Mom when I was an unruly teenager was that she should let me leave home at age fifteen. That I would in all likelihood leave anyway, so why not with her permission? How I wish I could have eaves dropped on that conversation. How exactly did it go?

Poor Mom. I was a difficult teen, to be sure. She had no tools to deal with me. And wasn’t mentally healthy herself. Hadn’t I been just as clueless about how to deal with my teenage son? Not that he left home, or threatened to at age fifteen, but that I let him entertain girls in his bedroom, insisting that he keep his bedroom door open, but gave up when he kept closing it. That’s on me.

My prayer this day is that I let go of all resentment towards my mom. Yes, she was and is a narcissist, but she was likely raised by one. Granny is long dead; my mother soon will be. May she die with my having full compassion for her, and may I be forgiven for all the resentment I’ve held towards her.

She wouldn’t understand if I tried to say these words, written or in person, so I hope God conveys them to her for me, and that somehow the message gets through, and that she may die, and soon, with a little more peace in her heart.

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How New York Showed Me the Enormity of God

On a recent, rain-soaked evening, I hopped over puddles, holding my pink umbrella high so as not to poke New Yorkers in the eye with it. I had just spent two hours in a taxi to travel less the nine miles from LaGuardia Airport into Manhattan. A mile from my hotel, I asked the cabby to pull over. I could walk to my destination faster than he could crawl through traffic.

I was in New York for our company’s annual holiday party. I work remotely in the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. Despite the destruction Helene visited upon us two months earlier and the ongoing recovery and clean up, I did not want to leave home. I love the mountains, and every day pinch myself that I’m so lucky to live here.

I’m not all that fond of New York

My husband and I moved to Asheville three years ago from the Chicago area. We’d lived in the same house in the northern suburbs for thirty-four years, but it had always been my dream to move to Asheville. After thirty-six years of me saying let’s go, my husband finally said okay. So you can probably understand why I’m so hesitant to leave the mountains, even for a thirty-hour whirlwind trip. Plus, I’m not all that fond of New York. Yes, it is a magical town, but it’s so big and dirty. And crowded. And congested. And expensive.

Thank God, I didn’t have to pay for any of it. It was all on the house.

My hotel was right off Times Square. I got lost there, disoriented by the blazing signs, walking from corner to corner, looking for a neon Hilton sign amongst the hundreds of flashing, moving billboards. I finally found it, dropped off my suitcase, and dashed off to find the office, hopping puddles and running, getting hot and sweaty because I didn’t want to be late for the party.

Mountains surround me instead of skyscrapers.

When I finally got to the office someone shoved a drink in my hands, gave me a hug and all was well. I went around hugging everybody. Forty of us, to be exact. And as we drove through the streets on a chartered bus headed for dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant located beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, I thought, what a miraculous city. All these millions of people basically getting along with one another. Sure, there’s violence, poverty and crime, homelessness and misery, but look at all the people who live there peaceably, who go home to safety and comfort every day, and that’s all they want–to be left alone with food to eat and a bed to sleep in. Millions of people basically getting along.

It occurred to me as I looked out at the hundreds and thousands of lit up apartment buildings that we aren’t inherently bad people. Humans, I mean. I think humans are inherently good. It’s this free will God gave us that screws things up, and, at the same time, is the beauty and miracle of being human. God gave us free will but left that creative spark of divinity in each of us. Some of us feel it, are consciously aware of that spark, and some aren’t. I don’t know why. Why have some people evolved not to be aware of the divinity within themselves? I think most people are aware of it, whether they call it God or spirituality or something else. Maybe just being conscious of being alive is enough for many people.

So, as dirty and crowded and congested and impossibly expensive as New York is, its very existence gives me hope.

People pull together in a disaster

Thirty hours after I’d left the mountains, I was back home in them. It’s peaceful here, quiet and old, where mountains surround me instead of skyscrapers, where I have freedom to breathe fresh air and see nature. Still, each of these places are proof of the existence of divinity, because as frightening and overwhelming as New York City is, so was Helene and the destruction it left behind. But people pull together to help one another in a disaster. Is New York a disaster? It could be on the edge of one. Maybe it’s one waiting to happen, but it hasn’t, it doesn’t, because people are inherently good.

I’m not sure what I’m saying here, only that while I do not like New York, I appreciate it and know others love it, especially New Yorkers. I get that, and I get that many New Yorkers would go bonkers living here in Asheville. Both places have exquisite value.

I’m glad I went to the Big Apple, even though I was stressed out beforehand because I dreaded going. I’m glad I saw how so many millions live side by side, basically in harmony. And I’m glad it’s not my life. I live the way I choose. I chose the mountains thirty-nine years ago. And I am finally living my bliss. To each his/her/their own, and may God bless us all.