Bookish

More than once, I've served as one of the leaders in the nursery at church, spending just over two hours every Sunday with children ages 18 months to 3 years. We're supposed to have play time, story time, snack time, singing time, activity (coloring, etc.) time, clean up time, and a "waiting for parents" activity like blowing bubbles for the kids to chase.

It's busy. It can be loud. It's definitely high maintenance - someone usually wants held, there's frequent crying and/or hitting, dirty diapers and/or trips to go potty down the hall in the restroom. The kids are adorable, but it's a lot of work.

Consequently, I like anything that makes the job easier. For instance, the children are more likely to listen to their scripture story and answer questions like, "Who created animals?" if they're also eating a snack, so I deliver the lesson during snack time.

Easygoing kids also make my life so much easier. I love all the nursery kids, but I appreciate the sunny, cooperative ones a wee bit more.

One day, we had a visitor, a two year old who was visiting her grandparents, members of our congregation. During play time, she got a stack of board books, and sat by herself, quietly paging through a book, then setting it down to choose another one.

I watched her, thinking two things: 1. It's so nice to have a happy, self contained child in class. No crying, screaming, shoving, hitting, taking toys, needing all the adults' attention - a child like that is very nice to have in class. 2. She reminded me of myself and my own children, who spent hours with books, from the time that they sat up by themselves.

Just as I was thinking how happy it made me to see such a happy, self contained child, the other leader looked at her, frowned and sighed, and said, "It always makes me so sad to see children like that."

Sad? Children "like that"? Was there something that I didn't know about? Was she sick? Was there something going on with her family, something I didn't know about - illness, job loss, some other kind of loss?

I asked, "Like what?"

"Children who don't mix with the other children, children who sit by themselves instead of joining in. It's so sad."

Wow.

OK, if this was an older child, one who wanted desperately to join in but was too frightened, or who'd been deliberately rejected, yes, that would be sad. I don't think that two year olds are capable of that kind of thinking, though. They do what they want to do, regardless of how the other toddlers feel about it. She was doing what made her happy, and what made her happy was to be by herself with a stack of books.

The idea of someone deliberately choosing to separate from noise and rowdiness to read is so ordinary, so expected, to me, that I forget that it might not look that way to everyone.

The nursery incident reminded me of a time when my husband and I stopped by my mother's house. We were still dating; it was a time when he didn't know my mother that well yet, apparently.

We came by Mom's house (going in the back door without knocking, because in my parents' day, family and good friends went to the back door; only strangers and salespeople went to the front door). I don't remember why we went by, just that it only took about 15 minutes. Mom was sitting in her favorite chair reading when we came in. She rested the book on her lap while we talked to her, then began reading again as we left. This was a completely ordinary interaction with my mother, and, frankly, with me.

It unnerved my husband. "What's wrong with your mom?"

"Nothing."

"Something has to be."

"You just saw Mom! She's fine!" I mean, she wasn't weeping, or sneezing, or coughing, or in a cast, or bruised, or giving any other indication that there was cause for concern. She hadn't been gruff or angry; she was cheerful and pleasant. I could not imagine where he'd gotten the very odd idea that something was wrong.

He was sure that something was wrong. As time went on, and the encounter was now days in the past, he seemed to be getting more and more upset, as I continued to assure him that nothing was wrong. I was completely at a loss to figure out what had him tied in knots.

Finally, he verbalized it (his communication skills are not fantastic). "If my mother was sitting alone in a silent house, something would be really wrong!" She'd either be very angry, or very sad, he said. Plus, she'd expect her loved ones to know, or find out, why, and take steps to fix it. Plus, he was sure that breezing in and out in a few minutes was more offensive than never stopping by, and the fact that Mom hadn't jumped out of her chair to offer to make us something to eat had to be a bad sign.

Whoa, there; cool your jets. "None of that is true of my mother."

"Of course it is. That's how people are."

Au contraire. I assured him that alone in a silent house was my mother's normal state of being, that she was happy as a clam, and she hated to play hostess; short visits were good. Plus, given the fact that we'd come by unannounced, expecting her to drop her book and entertain and feed us, especially for an extended period of time, would have been very rude, and made her miserable.

He was convinced, for quite a while, that I was just too self absorbed to know what my mother wanted; when he finally conceded that I was right about this, he still found it to be "very abnormal." (Which is funny, because that's exactly what I thought of his interpretation.)

Of course, having had children together, we're also occasionally baffling to, and baffled by, our children.

Our teenage daughter once took a book to a church dance, and sat over in the corner or out in the foyer reading during the dance. She thought that, if people really liked her, they'd notice that she was missing, come hunt her down, make her put away the book, and insist that she dance with them. The fact that everyone had left her alone to read her book had her in tears, convinced that nobody liked her.

Oh, dear.

"Honey, reading a book at a social occasion is the clearest possible way of saying, 'Go away and leave me alone. I don't want to be here.' If you want to spend time with people, you have to put the book away and join in, on your own!"

She was convinced, as children are, that I had to be wrong. "No! That's not what it says!"

"Yes, it does. Any time I step away from a party or event to read, it's because I want to be alone. I'd be furious if someone came along and insisted that I go back."

"That's because you're an alien!"

I repeated that yes, pulling out a book in a social situation was the equivalent of holding a sign that said, "Go away." We talked about the fact that it's a really bad idea to set up tests to try to determine if people like you ("If they like me, they will do this..."). It's a bad idea to expect that people who like you (or people who don't) can read your mind. A person who will try to tell you what to do and how to behave, making you stop what you're doing to do what they want you to do, is a controlling, unsympathetic person, and you should never wish for one or more of those in your life.

"If you want to dance, dance! By yourself, with your friends, ask a guy to dance. Don't put it all on other people. Talk to them, and more importantly, listen to them. Do not hide out and hope that they'll hunt you down. And if you don't want to dance, don't go to a dance! Stay home."

She was sure that I was wrong about this. After hearing the same basic thing from at least 4 other people, she conceded that I might be right, but still thought it was "weird."

Oh, dear. Human interaction: what's "sad" is that what one person hates is exactly what another person craves.

I will not feel loved if you get between me and my book.

A New Brother

Like most people, I'd watched Ancestry.com's commercials for their DNA analysis. I'd seen the great Internet videos with happy people crying over their revelations. I wished the test were less expensive, but one day I decided, this is available, and I can afford it - I have no reason not to take the test.

I was hoping for mysterious and exciting news. I wanted to be one of those people who said, "I had no idea!" when they discovered that they had, say, Native American ancestry.

Instead, sophisticated analysis confirmed what I already knew; I'm so white that I practically glow. All of my ancestry came from white Europeans. There were possible "trace" DNA matches of roughly 1% from elsewhere, but they tell you that the plus/minus on the calculations can be up to 3%, so that wasn't terribly exciting.

The biggest surprise is that my German and Polish relatives - I'm the third generation of that line born in the U.S. - had Brits in it, as well, because my British percentage is 53% without the 5% Irish included; add in the Irish, and almost 6 out of 10 of my ancestors were at least in part from the British Isles. My Eastern European percentage is 23%, with another 9% coming from Western Europe. I would have assumed that was higher, since my great great grandparents arrived here from Germany and Poland.

Well, no big exciting reveal, I thought. It was still fun to have the information.

Ancestry.com asks you if you'd like to make your DNA profile and/or your family tree available for others to view and compare. Sure, I said.

And then came the exciting reveal.

Just after Christmas, I came home to a message from my sister on my answering machine: "Call me back!" There were two more messages in my e-mail; she knows I read e-mail more than I talk on the phone. There were capital letters and the message: "CALL ME.  Ellen phoned me and asked me who someone on her Ancestry DNA list is...and I looked on there (haven't been on for a couple months) and found a "close family" relative AND a message from that person's wife, and I think he is our half-brother."

Ellen is our niece, our half sister's daughter, so that narrowed any relative down to my mom's side of the family. Another brother? All my life, I've had one brother, my genetic half brother. He's the oldest, and I'm the baby.

I went onto my Ancestry.com account, and found the same message sent to my niece and sister: "My husband was born in Reno, Nevada in Feb.1949. It was a closed adoption, but the ancestry DNA shows that he as a close biological relationship with you. Do you know how?"

Holy cow! I have another brother!

We made some phone calls, did some digging, and the information we all had matched up with my mother being this man's mother.

Our mom graduated from high school in 1946. Here is her graduation photo:

She was just beautiful. Here's another of my favorites, taken when she and her cousin Joanne spent some time staying, by themselves, at my grandmother's cabin on Houghton Lake.

We knew that right about this time, she was dating a young man named Jim. All I remembered was that it was a bitter breakup, and she never wanted to discuss him. My oldest sister remembered a bit more - that Jim's family had been well off, and they hadn't approved of him dating a farm girl. I once came across a photo in Mom's album of her, Joanne, and two young men. "Who's this?" I asked, pointing to the man standing behind her, with his hands on her shoulders. Mom's response was, "Oh. I thought I burned all the photos of him."

"What? What? Who is this? What did he do?" She was very calm, but unwilling to say anything else. And Mom wasn't the "reassure me, or keep asking, and eventually I'll talk" type. If she didn't want to discuss something, it would not be discussed.

Mom likes most people, so it was enough for me to know that, if she didn't like him, there was a reason. Now I wonder if his, or his family's, reaction to the pregnancy was the reason they broke up.

We knew that Mom and her sister, my Aunt Jeannette, and Jeannette's husband Fred arrived in Reno in the fall of 1948. The story we'd all heard was that they were on their way to San Francisco, and stopped here temporarily, but temporary became permanent when they loved it here. The part they left out was that they stopped temporarily in order for my aunt to establish residency in order to file for divorce from her first husband, a serviceman she'd married while he was on leave back home in Michigan. It was apparently an ill-advised marriage, short lived; Aunt Jeannette never mentioned it. It took six weeks to be granted resident status; as a resident, she could file for divorce. Fred probably didn't drive out with them, but arrived later. After the divorce, Jeannette and Fred got married.

We knew that Mom decided to come West because she wanted a change, something new in her life. That made sense. He sister was coming out here - why not go with her? What we didn't know is that one of the reasons Mom left home and traveled literally across the country is because she was 19 and unmarried and pregnant.

Anyone who knows me knows how much I admire my mom. Imagining her at 19 brought an entirely new and fierce admiration of her. Think about it - it's the 1940s. She's a pregnant teenager, unmarried, not even seeing the baby's father any more. She's moving across the country, so she's arriving in her new home with no job. She's living with her sister. Every single day, she feels the baby wiggle and kick, knowing that she will not raise him/her. She takes good care of herself, so the baby will be healthy. She gets bigger and bigger, and more and more uncomfortable. When she's out in public, people start to ask her about the baby. She goes through all of it not because it's easy for her, but because it's best for the baby. And she gives him his best chance at a happy life, a life she can't provide.

I'm not sure if she told her parents. They were divorced; she could conceivably have told one and not the other. My grandfather died before I was born. I love my grandmother, sincerely, but she was an overbearing woman; if she had known, her reaction would have been, "Let me tell you what we're going to do, Beverly," and she would have mapped out every decision. And I can see my mother incurring her wrath by saying, "Not we - me. I will decide what's going to happen."

I'm not sure if she put on a ring and invented fictitious answers to deal with all of the strangers who would inevitably ask personal questions, or if she told them the truth and let the judgement or pity roll off of her back. Either would be in keeping with her character - feel no obligation to share things that are none of someone's business, and take no grief from others.

She found a job in a legal office; she'd work for attorneys for the rest of her life. That's probably how she met the attorney who arranged the adoption; she'd later retire from the firm that bore his name, working for one of his partners. This attorney was a personal friend of my brother's adoptive parents, and handled the private, closed adoption.

I hear that, at the time, women were routinely sedated during labor, and often did not remember the birth. It was also usual policy for the birth mother to be kept from seeing, holding, feeding, or naming the baby, if s/he was being placed for adoption. It was considered less traumatic for them if they never saw the baby. Sometimes, they weren't even told if the baby was healthy, or if it was a boy or a girl. My 19 year old mother woke up in the hospital without the baby. (In almost exactly a month, she turned 20 years old.)

My brother's wife and his daughter told me the story of when his parents met him. They received a phone call saying, "Your baby is here," and drove an hour to the hospital. The babies being adopted were kept together. They walked into the room, and a nurse tried to hand her a baby. "Here's your son," she said. The new mother walked straight to the bassinet with my brother in it and said, "No, this is my son." The staff tried again to give her the other baby. "No, Mrs. R, this is your son. That baby isn't doing well (he was experiencing "failure to thrive"), and when he's better, he's going home with another family." She was not deterred. "NO. This is my son!" The hospital finally decided, two babies and two families meant that she could take my brother home. "He's always known that he was not only adopted, but very much chosen."

I'm sure that my mother worried, and hoped his family was a happy one. In fact, his mother was literally chosen "Mother of the Year" for our state. He was happy, loved and healthy. He grew up with two (adopted) sisters. When we met, he teared up as he said, "If I could, I'd thank her for getting me to my parents. If I could have chosen, I would have chosen them."

He'd had his DNA tested to learn what his ethnic background was, and to try to find blood relatives. Ancestry.com couldn't tell us that he was my brother, just that he was a close relative.

He was surprised by finding Eastern Europeans in his background. As soon as he saw my mother's maiden name, he recognized it as Polish, "and I thought, 'There it is!'"

At almost 51 years old, I finally got the announcement of a new sibling. I had a new brother! Well, he wasn't new, but the news was.

And so I added to my family my oldest brother, Allan. With him, we also added his wife, Jenny, and their nine children. I almost doubled my nieces and nephews! Many of them have spouses and children. My family suddenly got much, much bigger!

I thought of conversations with my mom years ago, when my nephew and his girlfriend placed a child with adoptive parents. They didn't tell the extended family until all the details were in place. They were concerned, his mother said, that the extended family might be opposed to the adoption. None of  my nephew's relatives were.

To my mother, I said, "The most adult thing they've ever done is realize that they're not ready to be parents. Someone has been literally praying for this child to arrive. Please let him go to his family."

"Oh, absolutely. Absolutely," she said.

My grandnephew's parents offered to let any of us who wanted to come to the hospital be there to meet and hold him before he went home with them, to another continent. I went, but my mother did not. "It would be too difficult, seeing and holding him and knowing that I'd never see him again," she said. I understood then; he wouldn't be back until he was at least 18, and she wasn't likely to be alive then. I understand more now. She'd already done this once.

Before we met Allan and his family, I worried a bit. What if they didn't like me? What if they were critical of my mom? What if he didn't want more relatives? I decided that whatever he wanted, it was fine with me. Baby sister? Yes! Just medical information? OK. It was up to him what he needed from us.

Someone said, "Just because you share DNA doesn't necessarily mean he has to be your brother." I knew what they meant - family is more than blood. But at the very least, here were 10 people whose lives were made possible by my mother. That meant that they were precious to me.

Although he grew up near us, he now lived in a neighboring state. With his birthday approaching, Allan made plans to have his birthday party here, so that he could meet as many of our family as he could. He, his wife, several of his children, children-in-law and grandchildren came, as did his sister, who flew in from Hawaii.

They're wonderful people. We loved them before we even met them. "I can't believe you were all out there, all this time," Allan's sister said.

Finding out about them is both exciting and new, and very familiar.

And my brother was happy to have more siblings - just as we were happy to have him.

Minutes after meeting him, we were posing for photos.

Here's Allan and all of his attending siblings; one sister could not make it.

Here's all of us in attendance; this is not the whole family.

It was fantastic finding ourselves in each other's faces. My niece Bekkie gasped at a photo of my mother at 16, saying, "That's me! That's exactly what I looked like at that age!" I had the identical reaction looking at my grandnephew Trevor. My niece Katie looks like my sister Lynne, daughter Lana and son Alex.

A friend who lives far away saw the photos on my Facebook page and said, "Boy, are your mother's genes strong! Look at all of you!"

Here's the Facebook profile photo I uploaded after the party. 

Allan's had a mustache his entire adult life, so the theme of his party was "Mustache Bash."

Someone asked me, "Are you angry at your mom?"

"Angry? Why would I be angry?"

"Because she never told you."

Oh, no. I understand completely. Especially when I was a child, I would have made her crazy with questions. "Are you sure you can't find him or her? Do you think it was a brother or a sister? Can't you ask someone? They have organizations where you can register - why don't you register? Do you think he or she is looking for you? Do you think they look like me? Do you think they'd like me? Are you sure you can't find him or her?" If I found out that we knew the attorney who arranged the adoptions, I would have been insufferable, urging her to ask him for information, in violation of law and conscience. "I'm sure he knows something!" Oh, no, she did the right thing by not telling me when there was no way to find him.

And I have siblings and a father; she couldn't possibly juggle all of our feelings.

Now, our parents are gone, no one's feelings will be hurt, no legal agreements broken.

Mom died four years ago; Allan's mom died three years ago. Bekkie said, "I'll bet those moms got together and said, 'We have to get these kids together!'" I'll bet they did, too.

They were both great moms; they both loved their children.

And now we have new siblings. I mean, we always had them, but now we know.

Thanks, Mom.

Thanks, Allan.

And thanks, Mrs. R.

Tony's Tree

Whenever someone, usually someone who grew up elsewhere, said to me when I was growing up, "Nothing grows in Nevada!" I'd say only three words: "My mother's yard."

"Well, OK, in your mom's yard," they'd say. My mother could grow anything. She and my dad bought a piece of typically empty Nevada land; their friends told them that they'd "never be able to grow anything there." Mom told, with glee, the story of how their most vocal critic pulled into the back driveway in the spring, when the flowers were blooming, the lawn was velvet, and the trees were filled out. "He stared with his mouth open, then got back in his car and drove away. He never came back, but we never heard any grief from him again."

My mom literally brought home cut branches, stuck them in the ground, and they turned into trees. A now towering cedar came home from a picnic in a styrofoam cup. She had fruit trees, vegetables, more flowers than you can count.

Now, it's been more than three years since she passed away, her yard hasn't been watered even once, and it's an absolute jungle. The shrubs and vines and things have taken over. The flowers are reseeding. There are seedling trees that have to go, because they have no room to grow up where they are. They're burying fences and patios.

Since I was a kid, the largest tree in her front yard has belonged to my friend. I mentioned it in my blog post just after Mom passed away ("Mom"): "Can I build a Swiss Family Robinson tree house in your tree and just live in it?" one of my friends asked her once. "Sure. You just let me know when," she said. Every few years, he'd bring it up - "That tree still there?" and she'd say, "Still waiting for you." "Maybe I'll bring my son over, and we'll build that treehouse," he'd say. "I'll be here," she'd tell him. We've called it Tony's Tree for years. It will always be Tony's Tree. 

They talked about his planned treehouse many times. "I want it to have power, plumbing, everything. I want to be able to live in it," Tony would say. "Sure," Mom would answer. After storms, he'd want to know, "How's my tree?"

"You're never going to cut that tree down, are you?" he asked once. "Oh, no," she said, sounding scandalized.

After Mom died, Tony came over to her house for her memorial, and again for Thanksgiving. "Is that tree still mine?" he asked. "Of course! It's always going to be yours!" My whole family knew. It was his; any time he wanted to build a treehouse, he was welcome. His kids were too old to be excited about a treehouse, but he hoped to have grandchildren. Maybe some day, they'd get to use it. "Maybe some day, I'll be homeless, and need to live in it," he joked.

A year and a half after Mom died, Tony died. I was unprepared for it ("Loving Tony"). He was sober, he wasn't sick, he'd recovered from a devastating car accident - everything was supposed to be OK.

Nothing on Earth lasts forever.

The tree comforted me. It stood where it always had. It waited.

I was comforted by the fact that we all knew that it was still Tony's Tree. Some day, when we had the money, I would build the treehouse. Maybe Tony's grandkids would get to use it. When I looked at it, I saw my mother, I saw Tony, I saw possibilities, I saw stability and predictability.

But the tree is old, and the weather is harsh.

"A big branch broke off of Uncle Tony's tree," said my daughter. She lives in her grandmother's house (which is now her Uncle Gary's house).

"Yeah, a lot of branches broke during that storm," I answered. Heavy, wet snow, much needed snow, and high wind had wrought havoc around town. But that tree is older than I am. Its trunk is probably 12 feet or more around. It would be fine, I was sure.

Then I went down and looked at the tree. The broken branch is huge, looking like a decent sized tree by itself. Its base is as big around as a person, and left a deep gash in the trunk as it peeled off. It's the kind of gash that invites insects or disease. Worse, as I looked up into the canopy, I saw what I've been ignoring and denying - dead wood.

Many of Mom's willow trees are showing dead wood in their higher branches. It happens, it's normal. But I have been actively in denial about how much is in Tony's Tree. There's quite a bit.

"That whole tree has to go," said someone behind me. It may have been my husband, or my son; I don't know. I just stared at the tree. "Yeah," I said, but I didn't mean it. That tree will outlive me - won't it? It outlived my mom. It outlived Tony. It'll always be there, won't it?

"It has to go." Someone else said it. It probably does, but I'm not OK with that.

The tree is coming to the end of its life. I have to wrap my head around that.

We puttered around doing yard chores; my daughter isn't a yard person. I kept thinking about the tree. I walked up and put my hand on its trunk. "I know," I said, "I know."

"Who are you talking to?" my son wanted to know.

"The tree." Then the tears came.

As long as the tree was there, I didn't have to let go. There are other trees - willows, apple trees, plum trees, junipers, a cedar, maples, an oak, stumps from long dead poplars. I would be OK losing any of them, even all of them, but not this tree. I was never prepared to lose this tree.

My son hugged me, long and hard.

My daughter came out of the house, saw me, and said, "What's wrong with Mom?"

"Uncle Tony's tree."

I know that I won't love them any less if I don't have their things with me. I know that they love me, with or without their stuff. I know that I haven't failed the tree, or failed my loved ones. I understand all of that. It's simply an intellectual understanding, though, not an emotional response. I will miss this tree more than I can say.

My family has assured me that we will make something with the wood, something great. We will leave the trunk standing. Maybe we'll hire a chainsaw artist. Maybe we'll make it look like the home of fairy tale elves. We will make something, something wonderful, something to honor Tony and my mother. I know that we will.

But change is hard.

I Want My Mommy

I had a dream with my mom in it recently. I knew that I hadn't seen her for a long time, but I couldn't remember why.

"Where have you been?" I said. "I've missed you!"

She laughed. "Right here," she replied. "Where else would I be?"

When she died ten months ago (not that I'm counting or anything), I thought that I was handling it well. I probably was - who knows? Anyway, I thought that would be as hard as it got.

She passed away just before the holidays, and I had it in my head that if we could just get through those first holidays, those first momentous firsts, we'd be OK. My family has been so amazing, I can't even express it.

Sometimes, what we need varies from person to person. The day after she passed away, my church had a holiday party planned. I knew that my husband and kids were looking forward to it, so I made sure that they went. I just could not handle the thought of all kinds of people extending condolences, so I stayed home. Everybody got what they needed.

I need alone time when I'm stressed or unhappy. I know that some people do not do well alone, and they will spend the time crying and sinking into depression. Not me; I look more like the housecleaning scene in Snow White. I become very efficient, metaphorically whistling while I work. I feel much better and more positive afterward.

I spent the first Mother's Day at home alone, too. My family went to church, but I knew that I just couldn't take it. I stayed home. There was no crying, no wallowing, no depression, but if I had had to expend the energy to deal with other people, on a day all about moms, it would have just crushed me.

I thought that I'd be feeling better as time went on. Isn't that what we hear? Time heals all wounds; misery fades. You learn a new normal.

Instead, I find that it becomes harder to be without my mom the more that time passes. I was so proud of myself in those first weeks. I'm finding that being without your mom for a few days or few weeks is easy. I'd done it before. I've been away from my mom on holidays, on trips, for sometimes months at a time when I lived hundreds of miles away from her.

It's becoming harder, because this is the longest I've ever been without my mom. Every day, it's a new record - the longest I've ever been away from my mom. There's no phone calls, no letters, no birthday cards. I actually feel like what I am - an orphan.

My children have lost all of their grandparents now. My oldest two have known all four of their grandparents and one great grandparent, so they've faced the loss of all of them. I've always told them what I truly believe - "They can see us any time they want. We just can't see them." The only grandparent that I ever knew, my grandma, died 5 days before my second child was born. She'd had Alzheimer's, so it was actually a positive thing. We'd been missing her for years already. Now, she wasn't miserable any more. She had been unaware when I got married and had my first child, but now I felt that I could share this birth with her, and she was happy for me.

I feel the same way about my parents and parents in law. I'm truly happy for my mom, who now gets to experience things like the birth of her two newest great grandkids. She'll be there when her oldest grandchild gets married this fall. One of her sons in law and one of her grandsons were recently hospitalized, and I am positive that she was right there. Now she gets to see her oldest great grandson's wrestling matches, and to look in on her daughter and granddaughter's classrooms. She couldn't do any of that during the last years of her life. She was in a lot of pain, and going anywhere was difficult. Now, pain and distance aren't a factor.

My kids never say, "I wish Grandma could see this," or "I wish Grandpa could be here," because we think that they do see, and they are there. They say things like, "I miss her," and, "I wish Grandpa could teach me how to shoot."

Selfishly, sometimes my thought process is all about me. I talk to my mom still, and sometimes I know exactly what she's probably saying back. Still, I can't see or hear her. I miss that. I miss her.

I think that this dream was a reminder of what I already know. Whether you believe that the memory of our loved ones is what makes them live beyond their own lifetime, or whether you're like me and believe that they are literally, sometimes physically, still here with us, in this dream my mother spoke the truth to me.

"I'm right here."

And "here" is wherever I am.

A Truly Grand Parent

My mother hated crowds and noise. For her, the concept of "crowd" was pretty small, too, encompassing groups that others might deem modest or intimate. When we celebrated my children's birthdays, she would only come celebrate with us if it was just the immediate family. If they were having a party, she would come by earlier that day to drop off a gift and then skip the party. They never felt neglected - they knew how she felt. If she went to the extended family Christmas party (and she didn't always go), she would stay for an hour or less and then slip quietly out without saying goodbye.

It was a big deal, then, when she went with us to Las Vegas for our daughter Terry's college graduation.

Mom had never been to Vegas. For most of her life she'd loved to travel, but at 78 she was frequently in pain and always walked with a cane. She also hated leaving her home and her cat in someone else's care, trusting only my cousin Ted to do a good job.

We offered to fly her there and back, sparing her the experience of a road trip of almost 450 miles one way. Still, she opted for the whole road trip, including the post-graduation trip to Disneyland. She'd be rooming with us, and sharing a bed with our oldest daughter. The kids were thrilled.

The graduation invitations had indicated that the ceremony would be held not at the school, a hotel or an auditorium, but at the Fashion Show Mall. We found that very odd - a mall? Really? Then we attended the rehearsal and saw why. The graduates would enter by being raised up out of the floor in a huge glass sided elevator, then walk down the fashion show catwalk, all the while accompanied by special effects smoke, lights and music. I forget which of my family said it first - "It's a very Vegas graduation."

So there's my elderly mom, surrounded by the regular shoppers, the graduation crowd, and loud rock and roll accompanied by smoke, in the Fashion Show Mall on the Las Vegas Strip. It would not have been unheard of for her to simply flee, but she didn't. She sat through the whole thing.

She also let us take photographs of her afterward. This too was not something she enjoyed. To say that she hated to be photographed is understating things. She would, however, agree to a few on special occasions.

Look at the sheer joy in that photo!

There was no question that she was proud of Terry.

Three years later, when Lana, our oldest, graduated from college in Provo, Utah, it was important to her to have Grandma there. It was even more important because she was getting married the day after graduation.

Again, we offered to fly Mom there and back. This time, it was 560 miles one way. Again, she opted for the road trip and shared hotel, this time sharing a bed with Terry.

She was even slower and in more pain when she walked than she had been for Terry's graduation. Climbing in and out of our Suburban was difficult, painful and laborious, yet she didn't even consider not going.

Take a look at the size of that auditorium, and how high up we were sitting! Still, not a single complaint - not so much as a bad mood from Mom.

After she passed away, Lana found that "I <3 BYU" button in Mom's bedroom.

The graduation was so huge that it spread over 2 days. If you wanted to actually hear your name called and to walk across the stage, you had to attend your department's ceremony the day after the huge commencement.   Mom was in such pain from navigating the campus that she skipped those ceremonies for our son in law (morning) and daughter (afternoon). Even then she didn't complain, but simply said, "If I'm going to be up to all the walking tomorrow, I have to rest today."

Weddings in our temples tend to be small and private, often with only the couple and their witnesses or their immediate family present. Often, even the wedding party is not present for the actual ceremony. The reception tends to be the big event. Sometimes, there's more than one reception, especially if the wedding takes place away from the bride's or groom's home town. I've known couples who've had a wedding luncheon for the family and wedding party after the ceremony, gone on their honeymoon, and then returned to a reception in the bride's home town and one in the groom's home town.

In order to witness the actual wedding ceremony, you need to be an adult member of our church, in good standing, and have received certain ordinances.

Because they've grown up in this culture, my kids have never minded not attending someone's actual wedding, even when they're in the wedding party. They don't mind at all waiting in the waiting room. I fit all the requirements to attend the ceremony, but I've spent many weddings in the waiting room, simply because I'm not immediate family (and the rooms are small). I find that to be normal. Others, though, especially those who aren't members of our church or those who haven't been exposed to LDS weddings, find it very odd and are sometimes quite put out.

Not my mom.

Allow me to digress a bit here for some history. I joined my church, by myself but with my parents' permission, when I was 12. My dad's family was not particularly religious at all. My mom's family was moderately religious; they claimed a denomination, and my mom was baptized as a baby. When my siblings and I were children, we attended church once a year, on Easter, at the Methodist church.

All three of my mother's daughters joined churches that our parents did not attend. It did not bother or fluster Mom in any way. She spent all of my pre-driving years driving me to and from church services and activities. Sometimes, when invited, she'd attend meetings or activities with my sister, with me or even with my cousins. She never felt that anyone, at any church, was trying to convert her, or was judging her, or was expecting her to explain herself. If she had, she would have firmly declined any further invitations. When one of her granddaughters converted to Judaism and married a rabbi, my mother met it with the same acceptance and grace and true happiness for her that she had exhibited when her daughters joined Christian churches.

One of the governing documents of my religion says, "We claim the privilege of worshipping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where or what they may." I had been taught that precept by example my entire childhood, so when I heard it, I already knew of its validity. Your worship, or lack of it, is between you and God. I am neither of those people. I might admire you, pity you, or be annoyed by you, but it won't affect whether I love you or how I treat you. I learned that first, and best, from my mom.

Mom was not into very existential "there is no right, there is no wrong" philosophies. She was very sure of what she felt was right and what she felt was wrong. She just had no interest in making you agree with her, or even in knowing if you did or not.

I have seen and heard the way some other people react to situations similar to ours. Relatives who can't attend the wedding ceremony are very hurt, feel very left out, and are often vocal. They say things like, "I've waited my whole life to see you walk down the aisle!" and, "Your church can't really care very much about families if they're willing to put them through this kind of pain."

My mom, far from home and in physical pain, didn't even think about complaining. It's not as if she put on a happy face for us and vented to people about how awful and inconsiderate it was after she got back home. Trust me, my mother had no problem being very vocal about her displeasure. She never even considered that the day should be about what she wanted or expected. It was about what Lana and Craig wanted, and she was truly happy for them that they got to have what THEY wanted. She was very, very happy that her presence there that day made her granddaughter happy.

She wore the same dress she'd worn to my wedding 24 years earlier. It matched Lana's wedding colors.

She waited in the waiting room with the younger children during the ceremony. They had loaner wheelchairs, which she accepted after three full days of walking farther than normal, and climbing in and out of our behemoth of a vehicle. After the family photos were taken, a family friend - the closet thing we had to our side of the family being there that day - whisked her off on a tour after hearing that she'd never been in Salt Lake City before. She loved it.

She spent the reception that evening commenting on how happy the couple was, and what a wonderful thing it was for them to have a happy wedding day. She even let us take more photos.

A week later, after their honeymoon, she braved a larger crowd to attend the reception in our home town. Almost all of my side of the family made it there; my sister and her husband drove for 12 hours to attend the reception, then drove 12 hours back home so as not to miss work. My daughter felt very loved.

Some people spend a lot of time talking about tolerance, consideration, kindness and respect. Often, unfortunately, I have observed that what they mean is, "I don't think that you are sending enough of these things my way. You should do better." My mom didn't spend much time talking about such things, or telling us to treat everyone with respect; she just did it. She never said, "So-and-so is just as good as we are, even though his skin is a different color;" she treated So-and-so the same way she treated everyone else. We learned by watching.

So many people don't understand the difference between understanding someone, accepting someone and agreeing with them. They say, "I want your understanding," when what they mean is, "I want you to agree with me." They say, "I just can't accept you because of your belief system," instead of realizing that it's totally possible to accept someone while disagreeing with them. I think I have an easier time navigating those feelings than many people do, because I had such a stellar example.

Just as an aside, the niece I mentioned who married the rabbi - perhaps that's not an entirely accurate way to describe it. The rabbi is a lovely, red haired woman, and as far as I know, they haven't had a ceremony, religious, legal or private. They simply decided to form a family - and so, years ago, I gained a niece, my kids gained a cousin, my mom gained a granddaughter.

(Postscript: four years after this was written, my nieces made it official with a wedding on the beach, attended by their children.)

One of the last pieces of mail my mother got was a card from those nieces, letting her know the gender of the baby they're expecting. "Did you know that Kara and Mari are having a girl?" she excitedly asked Terry that night. She was looking forward to this 5th great-grandchild. None of us are concerned with the biology of this child; she's already ours, and always will be.

I have no idea how my mom felt about many things, including gay marriage. I do know that I was raised to accept others for who they are, not who we want them to be. We do not need to agree to love one another, to treat each other with respect and kindness, and to enjoy each other's company. My mother taught me that. My religion reinforced it. Most of the people I choose to fill my life with embrace it.

Take a look again at the elderly woman in a wheelchair, in front of a building she would never enter. That is the face of religious tolerance. That is the face of someone so secure in her belief system that she didn't need to challenge or argue with anyone. That is the face of love and acceptance. That is the woman who taught me  that to be sure of yourself does not mean belittling or demeaning others.

That is my mom.

Mom's Wedding Dresses

Most girls, I'm told, dream about their wedding day. Not about the groom - sometimes, he's just an afterthought, a place filler - but about the flowers, the shoes, the hairstyle, the decorations, and most of all, THE DRESS.

My mother didn't. She wanted to be married, and have children, but BEING married was the important thing, not the single day of GETTING married. The ceremony was just what you did so that you could be married.

Part of that was, undoubtedly, the fact that she was raised by a woman who was raised by parents who came from The Old Country; they were not very frivolous. Part was that she was born during the Great Depression, and was a teenager during the rationing of World War II. Extravagant gowns were not on anybody's agenda. Part was just her own personality.

I was filling out family history paperwork when Mom was in her 70s, and I asked her for the date of her wedding to her first husband. She gave me a date in August of 1950. "Hmm," I said, as I wrote it down. "I thought that the date on the back of the photos was in September."

"It was," she said. "That was the second wedding."

Um - what? Second wedding? Why were there two?

"We eloped. Frankie was afraid to tell his parents." He was an only child of very Catholic parents. "We had the second wedding so they'd get to see him married in a church. He didn't want to hurt their feelings."

"Are you kidding? Are you joking? Why did you never tell me this before?"

"It wasn't important."

So funny, my mom. So practical.

Look at how gorgeous she was on that second wedding day.

The man on her right is Frankie, her husband. He was handsome, charming and funny, a fire fighter. The maid of honor was named Glenna. She didn't write down the best man's name, and I never asked.

Here's another of the couple:

Such a stunning couple. They made beautiful babies, my brother Gary and my sister Lynne. Hanging in her home, Lynne has the professional portrait of Mom and Frankie cutting their wedding cake.

Frankie was an alcoholic, and the marriage didn't last.

There are no photos from her wedding to my father. There were 5 people in the room - the minister, Mom, Dad, and my aunt and uncle as witnesses. There was no reception; the four of them ate out, then Mom and Dad drove home. That was exactly the way Mom wanted it - no fuss.

When I got to be a teen, I asked Mom what happened to her wedding dress, the one she wore when she married my dad. "I gave it to you kids (me and my sister June, 3 years my elder) to play dress up in. It got ruined, and I threw it out years ago."

"What? What did you do that for?" I was outraged.

"You thought it was so pretty. And I was never going to wear it again. Someone ought to get some use out of it."

I was determined to be scandalized. What if one of us wanted to wear it ourselves? "It's highly unlikely that you ever would. It would be outdated, if it even fit."

I sputtered. She didn't understand my reaction.

"Well, what did it look like?"

She shrugged. "It was white."

"Long? Short?"

"About mid-length."

I, who tend to be too attached to my Stuff, couldn't quite believe her low key attitude.

Time passed. The lesson was absorbed years ago. Things aren't important; people are. Weddings are nice, but the marriage is the important thing.

Those are the lessons exemplified by my mother's wedding dresses.

Mom

My mother passed away 5 days ago.

It's extraordinarily painful. I knew it would be. It is impossible to measure the impact of a wonderful mother, or to quantify her loss.

She tried, for years, to get us used to the idea that she wouldn't be around forever. We knew, of course, but we didn't like it. "Grandma, you have to live to be at least 100," my kids would say. "I have to do no such thing," she would reply.

She was ready to go. As the baby in her family, she'd lost her siblings years ago. My dad's been gone for 25 years, and all of his siblings are gone, as well. Her children are all doing well, as are her grandkids. She was in generally good health, although walking was more and more painful. She lived in her own home and had no desire to ever live anywhere else. She was 83 (five years older then my dad lived to be.)

"You have to live forever," my kids would say, and she'd harumph - "Hmph!" she'd snort. She was their last remaining grandparent, so they hung on a bit tightly, and she just rolled her eyes. A very practical and unsentimental woman, my mother.

That's a compliment, by the way. I aspire, in almost every way, to be more like my mother. Sometimes when I say things like "unsentimental," people assume it's a criticism, or they translate that to mean "cold and unloving." Nothing could be further from the truth.

I feel thousands of words waiting to be written about my mother. I will need to write them in the days, weeks and years to come.

We know that death is the way of the world. None of us is getting out of here alive. We know that death is necessary and beneficial. I know, down to my toes, that Mom left this world exactly as she wished to. She had a perfectly ordinary day, then went to bed. She passed away in her sleep; had she been able to script her passing, that's what it would have looked like. I also know that she is happy, really happy, where she is. In the words of C. S. Lewis, "There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind." I am truly happy for my mom; I am sad for those of us temporarily separated from her. "What an adventure!" said my adored big sister, as we discussed how things are for Mom now.

It's nice now to talk to people who knew her, to have experiences like the one I had over the phone with my cousin Karen. I told her something Mom had said, and from hundreds of miles away her laugh came over the line loud and clear. "That sounds just like Aunt Bev!" she said.

Mom belonged to some people unrelated by blood as much as she belonged to me. There's no real word for the relationship, but it doesn't need defined. "Family" comes close. One woman, as much my sister as anyone my mother gave birth to, told me about a conversation she had with her own dad. Her childhood had been marked by chaos, divorce and worse. When she was an adult, he told her, "I really feel that I failed you. I always knew there was a safe haven for me, a place that would always be home, where I'd always be welcome. I didn't give you that."

"It didn't matter that he didn't give me that. I got it anyway," she said. It wasn't the house, although the house holds many memories. It was Mom.

Oh, the minefields of childhood, adolescence and adulthood that my mother guided all of us through! Some were ordinary; some would curl your hair. None of them caused her to so much as blink.

If we loved someone, they were welcomed with open arms. She chaperoned the high school drama guild on our trips to Disneyland. These weren't school sanctioned trips - we took them on our own, 15 or 20 kids and Mom. When my dad was out of town on a hunting trip, she let the drama guild camp in her acre plus back yard; she let Tony use the occasion to demonstrate his fire juggling. She let us virtually empty her rooms in order to dress our sets. She loaned us her only fur coat, because the script called for it.

We could say or do the oddest things, and know she had our backs. I was about 16 and had my best friend sleeping over when there was a knock on the door at 11 o'clock at night. To my mom, who'd grown up on a farm, that was the middle of the night. She'd been in bed since 9. Still, when I answered the door and discovered two other friends there, then crept to her room to whisper, "Tim and Joe are here. They want to know if they can have fudgecicles," the answer was, "OK." When my friend Scott wanted to spend the night sleeping in my van in our driveway, the answer was "yes."

Another best friend had a key to my car before I did. I had no license, and he did, so he used his own key to drive me places in my car.

"Can I build a Swiss Family Robinson tree house in your tree and just live in it?" one of my friends asked her once. "Sure. You just let me know when," she said. Every few years, he'd bring it up - "That tree still there?" and she'd say, "Still waiting for you." "Maybe I'll bring my son over, and we'll build that treehouse," he'd say. "I'll be here," she'd tell him. We've called it Tony's Tree for years. It will always be Tony's Tree.

This does not mean that she had no boundaries; the boundaries were carved in stone. It meant that she knew the difference between the big stuff and the small stuff, and she truly did not sweat the small stuff.

My oldest sister is 57, and, with Mom's passing she said, "Now I'll have to be a grownup." She's a remarkable woman, brilliant, with a great life, great kids, and adorable grandkids, but she still counted on her mom. I feel the same way. The last time I saw my mom, the day before she died, she was bailing me out of another jam. I'd locked myself out of my house, in my pajamas, so I went to borrow her keys. She laughed at me - as well she should - and loaned me the keys. Without my safety net, without my mommy to rescue me, I'll have to step up my game. The world looks different now.

But, I swear, I can practically hear her. I will do or say something, and know what Mom would say if she were here. She may have moved on, but she hasn't really left us.

Still, I will miss her until we are together again.

"I'll miss you when you're gone, Grandma," my kids would tell her, and she'd say, "Why? I've lived a good life."

Indeed she did.