My Country

Well, another year has passed and it is almost July 4th once again. I have a friend who likes to point out to me sometimes that I do tend to study other countries more than I study my own, and perhaps this is true. However, I do love my country very much, and I wanted to say some of the things I love about America:

If I were enormously wealthy and could choose any place in the world to raise my theoretical children (because if I were extremely wealthy I'd adopt at least a hundred of them), I would choose this country. I wouldn't choose it because it's my own, or because it's familiar, or because it's wealthy. I would choose it because, as a general rule, I would be able to send my child to school without fear that armed militant groups would take over the school and slaughter hundreds (do you remember Beslan, Russia? Or, just a few days ago, that international school in Cambodia?) I would raise my children here because they could go to church without having to risk their lives, as Christians do in so many countries around the world, or that we could go to church without fear of losing our jobs or imprisonment, as is the case in Communist China. I would want my daughters raised here because so many daughters in impoverished countries end up in the international sex trade. Yes, we have that here, too, but an American girl is much less likely to end up entrapped in it! I would want my children raised here because they would have the freedom to choose their vocation, their educational level and institution, their fields of study and employment, etc. They wouldn't be trapped in a caste-like system, or a system of education and vocation that decides for the child in which direction he or she should go, as is the case in Communist countries. I would raise my children here because the odds are very slim that we will be eating at a pizzeria or cafe someday and have a suicide bomber walk in, or that the bus or subway we are riding on will be hijacked or blown up. Children in Israel deal with that every day. America may be younger than other countries, but we have more than made up for our youth with our contributions to the world. So many inventions are by Americans. So much advancement in medical science is through American doctors and scientists. Our level of freedom is unrivaled in the world. Americans are extremely generous. We give billions each year to overseas missions, hospitals, humanitarian projects, etc. (I am not talking about government money, but private money donated by everyday Americans). We are not perfect. We have crime. We have homeless. We have had school shootings, and hijackings, too. However, we are far safer than anywhere else in the world. If I were a journalist by profession, I would not have to worry about my headless body being found by a river because I wrote too scathingly about my government. (Ukraine just a few years ago). This past election was intense, but we did not see the candidates poisoning one another with Dioxin (again, sadly, Ukraine). We may have our problems, but it is illegal to buy or sell children on the street, as they do in many third-world nations. Our inner cities are in bad shape, and we do have gang warfares, drive-by shootings, drugs, prostitution, etc. but, however, there are many reasons why I am proud of my country. I am not going to delve into politics. I am not politically savvy enough to do that and am afraid that I would only make myself sound ignorant, and I don't want to do that. However, I do not think that we are the evil empire many make us out to be. We are not perfect. We make mistakes, sometimes many of them. I do not think our President is another Adolf Hitler, nor do I think he is intentionally trying to take over the world. Again, I am not going to go into my opinions of the war, or the election, or any of that. I do not believe that the "religious right" is out to destroy the country. I do not think that people who are Christians are just ignorantly waving flags and voting for whomever their pastors or conservative radio tell them to vote for. I think a good majority of votors have brains (notice, I said votors, not just the average joe who says he or she will not vote because they either don't care, don't know enough, or don't want to be involved). I find it insulting when I hear people say that the religious right is destroying America because we are too stupid and backwards to be progressive, too concerned with sexual morality and abortion rights to be concerned with the rest of the world. That is, to be blunt, a load of crap. Just because somebody believes in God and leading a moral lifestyle, and in raising their children to be moral and God-fearing citizens of our country, does not make that person ignorant-- some Bible-thumping hillbilly too stupid to read The New York Times or Philadelphia Inquirer. I'm probably not making much sense here, but I am getting tired of feeling guilty for being an American, for feeling guilty for belonging to a country that is, in my ignorant, Bible-thumping, small-town and henceforth small-brained opinion, the best darn country in the world. I've been outside my little town. I've seen glue-sniffing homeless children living under bridges in Eastern Europe. I've heard Chinese Christians whisper their sad stories to me as we sat huddled in the corner of our hotel room or walked outside where there were no "bugs." I've been in a country where the Mafia rules all, where one cannot even buy a loaf of bread without giving them a kickback of some sort. I've been in lands where people are tortured and simply disappear just because they disagree with their government. I've met people who had their fingers crushed. Who were wrapped in ice-cold sheets and left in torturous pain as those sheets dried, constricting them and almost asphysixiating them. I've met the people who rebuild their church every other year because the Communists keep tearing it down. I've met the 16-year-old who runs from town to town, living off the land and off the charity of others, because if she stops, the authorities will arrest her for talking too much about Jesus. I've met old women who had to sacrifice some of their own children to save some of their others during the War. I've stood in forests where partisans fought and where concentration camps were erected. I've been to the land of Babiyar and the land of Baba Yaga. I've come home and gotten down on my knees and thanked God for my country, for my freedom. I am not some ignorant hoke, and I am not some starry-eyed optimist who thinks her country never does any wrong. I do not have an education, whether formal or informal, in Political Science, so I could not debate with you about so many of the issues of the day. However, I do have a brain. I do think things through before I enter a voting booth. This is a long blog, and I'm sorry for going on like this, but I wanted to reiterate exactly why I love my country, why I voted the way I did, why I do not think we've become the Roman Empire or Nazi Germany arisen out of the ashes, etc., etc., etc. That's all I'm going to write for now. Feel free to comment, whether you agree or not. Dialogue is the best way to discuss various issues, especially in a blog.

An Amazing Book

Much to my joy and astonishment, I discovered last week that Svetlana Alliluyeva, Stalin's only daughter and only living child, is an author of three books. True, they've been out of print for almost 30 years, but thanks to the Internet, I was able to get two of them. I was overjoyed beyond words. Imagine how interesting her life must have been! They were books I could not pass up, books I would have spent anything to get, but thanks to Amazon's used book sales, was able to get for merely a few dollars a piece. What joy and happiness! Not only was she a direct eyewitness to a period in history that I find completely and endlessly fascinating, she is a very talented writer. Within her pages I found a kindred spirit. As strange as this may sound, I feel like I've made a friend. Yes, she is Russian and raised as an atheistic Communist, but her soul is so alive, so full of beauty, it is amazing. It is so interesting to me to watch her progress from a child who unquestioningly loves her father to a young woman searching for answers. Raised by atheists, she discovered God. Surrounded her entire upbringing by paranoia and intruigue, she is remarkably trusting. Not only did she lose her mother to suicide at the tender age of six, but she watched her beloved relatives on her mother's side disappear one by one. Aunts and uncles were arrested. Cousins disappeared without a trace. Some came back, most did not. It is fascinating to me to see how she knows the truth behind their disappearances, but is sidestepping around saying it. At some points she expresses love for her father and sorrow that their relationship was not a close one. At other points she wonders what led him down the paths he went down. I have not yet reached a point in the book where she flat out says, "My father was a monster," but I can see her thinking it. Yet, he was her father and she has fond memories of him in her early years, before her mother's death. It has raised endless questions in me. When, exactly, did that child grow old enough to realize what was happening around her? Why did she start to distance herself from her father, with whom she had been close when she was a young child? The questions raised are endless. I haven't finished the book yet. I'm eager to find out what happens to her. I only know what I was able to glean from a few articles on the Internet - that she defected to the United States in the 1960's. That she led an unhappy life of wandering from marriage to marriage and country to country. That she is currently in a nursing home in Wisconsin. That is all I know about her. Yet, within these pages, written almost 40 years ago, I am finding someone like me: someone sensitive, yet reserved. Someone who is devoted to her friends and who loves the written word. Someone who has had a difficult life but who still finds beauty in it. Someone who has come to realize how much God loves her. The book is called Twenty Letters to a Friend. I have since discovered that it is available at just about any good library. How I wish I had known that before! I didn't even know the book existed, though. Go to your library and read it. You won't be disappointed!

A Dog Worth Writing About

My mother is beginning to write her second book (yes, her second! That's two more than I have written!) It is about her Norweigian Elkhound, Tikvah. While animals are a part of most everybody's lives, it is rare to encounter that very special animal that has such an impact on a family, that animal is always remembered with a touch of wonder and greatfulness that she was yours. Tikvah came into our lives just about twelve years ago. I remember the day very clearly. My mother and I had just gone to see her radiologist (she had finished up chemo and was gearing up to get radiation at the time to fight her very aggressive cancer). The appointment had been a gloomy one and my mom and I were feeling very down and discouraged. We decided to stop by the local Mall to cheer ourselves up. Once there, we wandered into the pet shop. It was there we met Tikvah. Being just a little over eight weeks old, she was tiny and dark. She was, by far, the cutest puppy we had ever seen, and we had been through many puppies. She looked directly at us, even though there were many people in the store that day. My mother exclaimed, "Oh, I just have to hold that puppy!" I cautioned her against it, saying that we couldn't afford a new dog. My mother scoffed at me. "I'm not going to buy her! How can we? We have no money. I just want to hold her." Well, the little puppy that she "just wanted to hold" has been a part of our family for twelve years now. We cannot imagine what life would have been like without her.

Tikvah is still little, but she is gray now, not black. Her breath could kill a full-grown moose, and she is fussy and pushy. Yet, we adore her. She found her calling early in life. After my mom's cancer treatments were over and her immune system had recovered from the double trauma of chemotherapy and radiation, my mom began visiting other cancer patients, especially ones with terminal diagnoses. She, too, had been expected to die, and she knew exactly how they felt when they heard the doctor say those dreaded words, "the cancer has spread..." One way or another, my mom became involved with a tiny group called Paws with Patience, a group that took their dogs out to nursing homes and to visit the very sick. Tikvah very quickly established herself as a natural. One of her first "assignments," when she was still very much a puppy, was a man named Dave. Dave had such a severe, horrible form of cancer, his body was literally falling apart on him. His suffering was enormous. He was a young man still in his thirties, with a wife and small children, and he was dying. Tikkie brought him such a tremendous amount of comfort, when he was on his deathbed, my mother received an urgent phone call from the family asking her to rush Tikkie down to Dave so he could be with her one more time. Dave was by this point unconscious, but Tikkie crawled right up in bed with him and cuddled next to that suffering man who had been so ravaged by disease. He died shortly after Tikkie's visit with him, and his family was very thankful she was able to comfort him in his last moments. It was at that point that Tikkie truly became a Therapy Dog.

She really is an amazing creature, our Tikvah. Originally, we thought her name meant "Little Jewel" in Hebrew, and that was what we named her. Then, we mistakingly thought the name Tikvah meant "Hope." After all, isn't the Israeli national anthem "Hatikvah -- The Hope?" Very recently a friend whose grasp of Hebrew is better than mine set me straight. Her name means what we originally thought - little jewel. It doesn't matter. She is a jewel, and she has brought hope and comfort to hundreds, so her name is appropriate. She is the only dog I know who can count to five, add and subtract, and do very simply multiplication, both in English and in Spanish. We taught her using hand signals, and she caught on so quickly, it is everybody's favorite trick, one that is demanded of her several times a day on her visiting days. Tikkie not only goes into nursing homes to comfort the elderly and infirm, she has visited hospice patients, mentally retarded children, and her most recent venture - schools and libraries where young children can read to her. My mother, my amazing mother, pioneered the R.E.A.D. program in this area. She had read about it and was very enthusiastic about having her therapy dogs (by this point she was the head of Paws with Patience and it had grown from a tiny group to over 80 members) work with school children. Tikkie is wildly popular with the kids. They draw her pictures. They write her letters. On Christmas, she receives more cards than I do, all from children who adore her.

Tikvah has led a more full life than most humans I know, including myself. How many of us can say that we have comforted literally hundreds of infirm or dying people, given joy to mentally retarded children who cannot see or speak, but who can reach out and feel the warmth and fur of a dog, sat patiently while child after child demands that we do endless tricks until we are too exhausted to do any more, and generally been a comfort and a great joy to all who have known us? I can't say that about myself, but my mother's dog can. Tikkie's getting older now. She's slowed down. She no longer goes on wild runs throughout the neighborhood with my mom and I in hot pursuit. She grows tired very quickly these days. Yet, she is still amazing. Stop by and see her sometime. She'll give you a kiss with her stinky kill-a-moose breath, but you will still love her.

Remarkable Mothers, part four

There are two friends I think of when I think of the motherly attributes of the Virgin Mary. One is my friend Tiffani. She has her own section all to herself. The other is my friend Audrey. There are different parts of both women that I see emulated in Mary. Tiffani is a teacher, a passionate historian, someone who would fiercely defend her faith and her country against anyone who might challenge her. Audrey is a nurturer. I can see in her what Mary must have been like in Bethlehem with newborn Jesus. Audrey is someone who would (and has) sit up all night holding her sick child so he can breathe and rest more comfortably and safely. Her numb arms and exhausted mind don't matter to her, because her child has made it safely through another night. Every need her children have are attended to, yet they are not spoiled. She blends the perfect balance of gentleness and firmness necessary to raise them. When I see images of the Madonna and child, I think of Audrey holding her babies. She is fiercely protective, yet she marvels at them, at the gift she has been given. All of the love and tenderness that a human being can possess is passed directly into those children. If they don't learn anything else in life (and they will learn a lot, because Audrey, too, is a natural teacher), her children will know that they are loved.

Remarkable Mothers, part three

I have neglected this section, and May is almost over! I would like to tell you about my friend Tiffani. She is a remarkable mother well worth mentioning. When I see her interacting with her children, I think of Mary. I did not know Mary when she was alive on this earth, but I imagine she was a lot like my friend Tiffani. Tiffani adores her children. She thinks being a mother is the highest calling a woman can have. When her children enter the room, Tiffani's face lights up with a smile. Her entire day is structured around teaching her children. She homeschools two of them and will be homeschooling the third school-aged child next year. Even over the summer, though, she will continue to teach them. Her children devour learning the way other children devour snacks. Every experience Tiffani and her children have, she turns into a learning experience for her children. Yet, her kids are not just "book smart." There is much spiritual learning in that household, too. They talk about Jesus as easily and casually as they would talk about their friends. They really know Jesus. He isn't just some mysterious figure they think about during Sunday Mass. Getting a chance to speak with their priests on Sundays after Mass is often the highlight of their week. They pepper them with questions. They ponder the answers for the rest of the week. They draw them pictures of Jesus. They really love God, they truly, truly do. When her oldest son had his First Holy Communion recently, there was a family celebration. Her child could not wait to receive Jesus in the Eucharist for the first time. He has such a deep love for God, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to see him go up to receive Holy Communion. Tiffani's middle son wants to be a priest, and I know he will be. Sometimes the thought has crossed my mind that perhaps all of Tiffani's sons would be priests. That is a thought so amazing, it gives me chills to just think about it. It is an incredible grace to have one child who goes into the priesthood. Imagine the grace if all three boys go! I know she would be thrilled. Anyway, when I see Tiffani bent over her children, brushing strands of her hair away as she tells them some historical fact or tells them of some Biblical figure she makes sound so alive, one expects to turn around and see him or her, I think of Mary. I can see Mary doing that. I can see Mary bending over young Jesus, instructing Him about His heritage, telling Him the history of the Jewish people, teaching Him to pray, teaching Him to love and cherish life. All good mothers emulate Mary, because she was and is the ultimate mother, but Tiffani emulates her more than most.

Wrapped in a Quilt of Words

This afternoon I went with my mentally challenged client to the local Farmer's Market. It is a place he dearly loves and I rather dislike. Today I rather enjoyed myself, though. Bill and I had gotten some cold chocolate milks and were sitting on a bench inside watching the mobs of people walk around "the loop" at the Farmer's Market. I began to listen to those around me, and what I heard made me smile. I heard an Italian woman speaking wildly in short, staccato sentences to her children in front of the bubble-gum machine, her hands all the while gesturing and waving. I saw a father from what I presumed to be Southern Asia with his two small children, sometimes scolding the little one for touching too many tic-tacs, sometimes very lovingly speaking to both children and touching their shoulders. I wanted so much to ask him where he was from, if he lived near Cambodia, what it was like there, etc., etc., etc. I didn't, of course, I'm too reserved for that. I just enjoyed listening to him speak. I saw another Asian couple with their three naughty children, and they made me smile as I saw their harried mother raise the back of her hand to her forehead and say something in an exasperated tone. My personal favorite was the Spanish-speaking woman with the curling soft hair, whose words were soft and gentle, swirling around me like something warm and comforting. I remembered my friend Tiffani telling me that she thought Spanish was one of the most beautiful languages, and I realized why. It is the "chicken soup" of languages, the one that makes you want to curl up on a comfy sofa on a rainy day, wrapped up in your grandmom's warm quilt, sipping tea. I actually found myself growing irritated at the loud English-speaking woman in the midriff shirt who barged into my reverie with the noisy conversation on her cell-phone. I found myself saying a little prayer, thanking God for the patchwork quilt of languages I had heard today. I thought to myself that maybe God's confusing the languages at the Tower of Babel wasn't a curse, after all, but a gift - a beautiful gift. I wondered at humanity's ability to have so many different kinds of people come up with so many different languages. I really enjoyed myself at the Farmer's Market today. Usually I rush through there and do not stop to sit and listen. I will do more of that after today, because hearing all those languages swirling around me was like a rush of warmth wrapping itself about me on a cold day. It was comforting. It was beautiful. It was a gift.

2005 Relay for Life

I just returned from the local Relay for Life. I go every year with my mother. She is always there with her pet therapy group, but she began going not because it's a good community outreach, but because she is a cancer survivor. She always very proudly wears her "I am a Survivor" t-shirt, and she always walks the very first lap in the relay, the Survivors' Victory Lap. I wouldn't miss spending this day with my mother for anything in the world. Despite it's somber subject, it is a joyful day. It is a festival, really, with games and moon-bounces for the kids, community leaders out flipping burgers and selling messy ice-cream waffles that drip all over you before you have the chance to eat them (I ended up slurping mine off of the soggy paper plate!), balloons and music, and sometimes a very bad bagpiper. There is a luminary ceremony at night where luminary bags bearing the names of survivors and those lost to cancer are set out, glowing peacefully in the dark. Their names are read aloud during an hour-long service, and it is very moving. It is the only place I know of where I will walk up to a complete stranger and ask him or her the intimate details of their cancer treatments, and that complete stranger will share those details, and neither one of us will find that strange. This year and last year I saw a young girl in her upper teens sitting next to her mother's luminary bag, sobbing throughout the entire ceremony while her friends sat next to her and held her hand. I don't know if it was the same girl both years. My heart ached for her. Every year my mom places a bag out for a little boy named Shaun who is not so little anymore, and whom nobody expected to live through his cancer. Every year we put out bags for my grandfather, and every year my mom and I grow a little teary-eyed when we read his name. This year my mother had several bags, many of them from children whom she has gotten to know through the R.E.A.D. program with her therapy dogs. They drew pictures of little dogs all over her bags. And I don't believe any of my mom's bags caught fire this year, always a plus! It is a good day, a happy day. It is a day to celebrate life, not just raise money to fight death. I realized tonight that each year the number of people on the luminary bags whom I have personally known grows more and more. There is my parents' friend Karin, my mom's friend Darlene, little but not-so-little Shaun, my grandparents, my mom's friend Brenda, my client's mother (I never knew her, but I know her son very well, so that counts). Cancer had touched all of these people. Some of them survived, most did not. My mom survived. We don't consider her lucky. We consider her a miracle. Just about every person at the Relay has been touched by cancer in some way, whether personally or through a family member or friend. This year they did something nice: along with the usual signs that say things like "Every 2.5 minutes in this country a woman learns she has breast cancer," there are signs saying that survival rate has risen 20% in women with breast cancer over the past 15 years. There are signs saying how many millions have been raised for research. There are signs saying which cancers we are having more and more victories over. They are happy signs. Good signs. They are signs that give me hope, because cancer is genetic in my family and I am grateful for the research that is being done today that may save my life or my sister or niece's life in the future. So, whether cancer has touched you or your family or not, go out to your community's local Relay for Life. Open your eyes and watch the people around you. Ask some of them to tell you their amazing stories. They'll be happy to do so, I will promise you that. You will leave at night crying, but you will leave smiling, too, because it is just that kind of day.

Remarkable Mothers, continued

Hey, everybody, I'd like to continue my section on inspiring and notable mothers I have known. This time I would like to talk about my aunt. My Aunt Evie is remarkable. She has raised four rambunctious boys, all of whom turned out to be wonderful human beings. She is the doting and adoring grandmother of six. I always considered my Aunt Ev to be like a second mother to me. She was the one who taught me to ride a horse. I have many happy memories of riding her pony, Buffin, when I was very small; and of riding her horse Comanche when I was bigger. When I was little she always took me into her stable to feed and play with the horses. As I grew older, she let me play in there by myself, which was a huge adventure for a child! That stable is full of all kinds of old things that were just so irrestible to a curious child with an overactive imagination. When I think back to favorite haunts of my childhood, I think of my aunt's stable: standing in Amber or Commanche's stall brushing them. Feeding them grain and hay. Sitting on Amber's feeding table and just enjoying being there. Sometimes I even fell asleep on that table, right next to the horse. My parents always knew that whenever I could not be found in or around my aunt and uncle's large property, they would find me in the stable. My aunt and uncle had the ideal property to raise children on. It was (and still is) large and sprawling. They had wonderful climbing trees and a fort built just for us kids. During the pre-fort days, we used to climb up one of the trees and crawl onto the roof of one of the sheds. That was our fort in those days. Apparently my uncle decided we needed something more elaborate, so he built this lovely fort back against the woods. It was great. There were large fields to ride horses in. The stable was long, dark and sometimes creepy, and my cousins and siblings and I spent many adventuresome hours imagining what kinds of ghosts were in there. My grandparents lived on the property, just across from my aunt and uncle's house. We children ran in and out of their house constantly, always banging the door, always tracking dirt inside. There was always a constant stream of children running about between both houses. My grandparents loved it. They never once scolded us for the banging doors or the dirt. They never said, "We're tired. Let us rest for an hour or so." Whenever we visited down there, it was a joyous occassion. Not only did we get to play on that lovely piece of property that was so ideal for children, but we got to see all the family we loved so much. We all adored my grandparents, and it was so nice to be able to visit with them at the same time we were visiting my aunt and uncle. My aunt is one of those remarkably cheerful people who is so genuinely kind and sweet, one can't help loving her to pieces. She and my mother are the closest of friends. My aunt is definitely a hands-on kind of person. She survived raising my four cousins with their stunt-bikes and dirt bikes, and rock-climbing and any other kind of dangerous, thrill-seeking sport they got into their heads to do. They're great, though. Three of the four are married now, and have settled down and are wonderful fathers to their children. It's a tribute to my aunt and uncle. My cousins had the best to learn from. My aunt and uncle are terrific parents and grandparents. My aunt would do anything for me, I know it. When I was planning my trip to China and doing all kinds of fund-raising to raise enough money to go, she held a candle show and donated the proceeds to my trip. I was so pleased, I can't even tell you how happy that made me! I'm running out of time, but I wanted to mention a little bit about my aunt and all the happy memories I have because of her. She and my mother have a very deep faith and have been a major influence in my own faith. She is selfless and kind. She is decent and very loving. I am proud to have her as my aunt.

Mothers I Have Known

I am imitating my friend Tiffani's blog and writing about Mothers this month. I was so inspired by her own writing, I decided to do my own. I want to talk about the various mothers I have known throughout the years, because I believe there is nobody more important than one's mother. Here is my list of mothers, and please excuse my lack of paragraphs. My computer is having a breakdown right now... Joyce: this is my own mom. Everyone who knows her loves her. She has "adopted" more kids than I can count. It was not uncommon in our household to have my own friends or my siblings' friends call her "Mom," also. She loved all of us, whether we were her's or not. This is a woman who has her nursing degree and who gave up nursing to be with her children when we were small. We were more important to her. She opened up a daycare practice so that she could be home with us and so that we did not have to go to Day Care ourselves. She gave up her career for us. I adore her for that. She scrimped and saved to help send us to a private Christian school because she wanted us to have a solid Christian education. She was the kind of mother who surrounded my brother and sister and I with books. We were read to from our infancy onward. Even when money was very, very tight, there was always book money. My sister and I belonged to the Weekly Reader's Club, which we loved so much we saved our books and passed them on to other children when we were grown (some of them I still have because I could not bear to part with them!) Even as a child I was allowed to check out adult-level books from the library, as long as they were educational. Because of my mom's encouragement to read, read, read, my brother and sister and I are all hopelessly in love with books. We hoard them. We cherish them. When my sister built a nifty set of bookcases in her basement on Sunrise Lane, it was a cause for family celebration. When Matthew stayed up all night reading a book for the first time when he was six years old, my sister called me and cried. That is all my mother's influence. My mom sang to us constantly when we were children. She sang to the daycare kids, too. She sang to us songs about Jesus. She sang to us about poor, tragic Clementine and her untimely drowning in 1849. Whenever we tripped and fell she'd sing "Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again!" As very small children, she would open up the hymnbook and we children would compete to see who got to sing a song (and yes, siblings, that is a real memory!!) When we passed a construction site, she'd sing "You'll never get rich by digging a ditch!" She played music for us constantly as children. She still plays music constantly. We went through phases. We went through the 8-tract-tape phase of the 70's (mercifully short!) We went through the Life Action Singers phase, also of the 70's (and even though we chuckle now at their long dresses and long, straight hair parted in the middle, I did learn a lot of hymns from those records.) During 1976, the bicentennial year, we played a lot of Sousa. My dad loved music, too. He still does. I do have to mention him briefly, because he gave me a big pile of Russian, Ukrainian and Polish records when I was young that I cherish deeply to this very day!! And even though my mom really doesn't care that much for opera or classical music, she did play it for us, especially Hooked on Classics, which, as 1970's as that was, taught me excerpts from just about every classical piece ever written. It was my first introduction to classical music as a child. She insisted I take piano lessons, and even though it took me eight years of lessons to figure out I'll never be wildly talented, I do enjoy music and I developed quite a love for classical music through my piano lessons. Also, my learning classical piano led to my learning all about opera, which I adore to this day. Again, all due to my mother. My mom was the kind of mom who sought out her kids' talents and encouraged them in those talents. My brother was always a gifted artist, and my mom made sure he had all the art supplies he needed. When he entered the film phase of his artistic talents, she was very enthusiastic and gung-ho and cheered him on in everything he did (and still does!) My sister turned out to be quite an accomplished flutist as a child, and my mom drove her to endless lessons, searched for the best teachers for her, and again, cheered her on. I think my mother was rather baffled by me. After all, who else could say that their ten-year-old daughter had pictures of Eva Peron on her wall! She always encouraged me, though, no matter how quirky my interests were. When I announced one day in the later 1990's that I intended to go to Ukraine for an entire month, she bravely smiled and said "Great, honey! That'll be great!" Later, years later, she told me that she cried after I got on the plane. I think she cried that entire month! When I announced, once again, to her that I was going to be smuggling Bibles into China, she smiled an even broader smile and said, "Wonderful!" She never told me, but I bet you she cried when I got on that plane, too. The only time she ever forbade me to go anywhere was when I told her of my longing to go to Cambodia. She refused to smile at the thought of me going to that country. She simply said, "Please wait until I'm gone to go there!" She's trooped with me all through Manhattan and we have very proudly determined that we have mastered the subway system, with the help of my nifty little laminated map. I could go on and on about my mother. She's the most wonderful person I know, and she's my best friend. I love her dearly. I'll write more about her later: about how she's a cancer survivor, about how she runs an award-winning dog therapy group, about how selfless she is and how loving she is. I'll write about her incredible faith and her inspiring life. All of that will come later. I hope you enjoyed reading about my mom, because she really is a very special lady.

What makes you happy?

First of all, I'd like to apologize to my faithful readership of five for my nearly two-week absence from my oh-so-unintelligent blog. As all of you know, work has been phenomenally busy and I've barely had time to sleep, much less write. Tonight I have a few spare moments and am actually awake, so I decided to write a little bit.

What makes a person happy? That's an elusive question. It is commonly misunderstood that to be considered a happy person, one has to be continuously smiling, never down, always cheerful, never annoyed, etc., etc., etc. I don't consider that happiness. I consider that as needing an adjustment in one's Thorazine drip. This is my definition of happiness, and it's not a Webster's definition, just my own: happiness is a feeling of contentment, a knowledge that you are where you are supposed to be, being in possession of a few very good friends, and being able to recognize what makes you smile. By my own definition, I am quite a happy person right now. Yes, I am overworked, sleep-deprived, always running around, and am often suckered into doing way too much. On the other hand, though, I am content with where I am right now. My job is frustrating and I am paid nothing, but I have learned a lot from it and it is flexible enough to allow me to go back to school full-time this Fall. I have an apartment I love. My parents are only three miles away. I possess exactly three friends (six if you count their husbands) who are very dear to me. I have a niece and nephew I adore, and another new nephew on the way. My cat has never peed on anything or shredded anything beyond the occassional roll of toilet paper. I know what makes me smile: having Polish Night at my friend Tiffani's house, and having her put up with my quirky music. Listening to my quirky music, with it's gypsy wildness, Russian baritones, and baliliakas. Seeing my friend Audrey's newborn son for the first time. Playing with my godson. Spending an unholy amount of money on my niece for her birthday. Calling my mother and annoying her with my babblings about genetic research and migratory patterns of ancient humans. Hearing my friend Dawn's son's lack of personal pronoun awareness when he says funny things like "Zachary wants Zachary's drink." Cuddling a little puppy. Buying lots of books at the library used-books sale. Driving by my church and saying to myself "I belong there!" (yes, I know, that's a little pathetic, but I really love St. Isidore's). I have a lot in life. I am very happy right now. So, faithful readers, respond to this blog and tell me what makes you happy, even if it is quirky. You can't be quirkier than me, I can promise you that, unless you, too, have a favorite Croation CD stashed away somewhere I don't know about!