Tag Archives: love

An Old-fashioned Love Story

A question, Celebrating, Love, ,

salvation army bandHow my grandparents met is a true love story.    In the early years of the twentieth century, my grandmother Jennie Dunn was a member of the Salvation Army.    One afternoon while she played in the band to bring sinners to the service, a gang of young toughs decided to harass them.  My grandfather John Myers was  part of that group, but when John saw Jennie,  his life that changed.  Love at first sight for both.  She left the Salvation Army to marry him.  He found faith and wrote religious pamphlets that were very popular in Wichita, KS.  They had seven children, one of whom was my father.   I’m named for my grandmother whose name was Jane.  Jennie was a popular nickname for Jane back then.

I only knew my grandmother when she was much older, nearly seventy.  Completely deaf at that time, she looked a great deal like Whistler’s mother in Arrangment in Black and Gray.   She sat straight and unsmiling and never said a word.  I knew her children adored her but I knew her not at all.old fashion love story

But she had experienced a love strong enough to steer her life in a different direction, to leave what she knew and begin life with a man so different from her.

How often we judge people on how we see them not who they are or who they were before we entered their lives.   How much we miss out on!

Do you know an unexpected  love story you’d like to share?  I’d love to read it.

 

 

How are you?

A question, Confession, George, , , ,

cat how are youWhen the nurse is taking me back to the cubicle where I will be imprisoned until the doctor drops by, he or she always asks. “How are you today?”  That question always stumps me.  My first thought is to scream, “I’m at the doctor’s office.  How do you think I feel?”  However, I do possess a thin veneer of courtesy and say, “Fine, thank you.  How are you?”

Then I sit in the little room and ponder that question.    Finally I decide the nurse is not really  asking for a health report. “How are you?” is a  polite social convention which really doesn’t demand an honest answer, only recognition that the rules have been applied and accepted.   Yes, I may be throwing up on the nurse’s feet, but I answer, “Fine.”  I may be doubled over in pain or spouting blood from every orifice, but that’s not what the nurse is asking.   The nurse is simply recognizing that I’m there and my answer merely says, “Thank you.”

But the question came up again six months ago  and again I had to work out what others were saying,  Only minutes after George died, one of our ministers asked, “How are you doing?”  My mouth dropped open.  I wanted to shout, “How do you think I feel?  They joy of my life is gone.”  I didn’t of course but had no good answer.  People asked that over and over in the months after George’s death and, every time, I thought, “You have to know how I feel.”  But I didn’t say that.  “As well as can be expected,” I’d say and that was the truth.  But why did they ask?  comforting friendsDidn’t they know?

Again I realized that, yes they all knew I hurt.  That question meant, “I care about you but I don’t know what to say.”  It meant, “He was my friend and I hurt.  How are you doing?”  It meant so many things my friends and George’s didn’t know how to ask, what words to use.  And thanks to all those friends and ministers and family members, I’m doing fine, sort of.  Thank you for asking.

 

 

 

 

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My parents didn’t teach me to hate. Thank you!

Celebrating, Family, Musings, , , , , , , ,

My parents didn’t teach me to hate

I look back over the years and realize what an amazing statement this is:  my parents didn’t teach me to hate.   Never once did I hear a word against any group or people, religion or race.   I didn’t grow up with the burden of prejudice.  I didn’t have to unlearn the lessons of racism.

You may not think this statement makes my folk sound special.  I hope your parents did the same.

What makes this fact  remarkable is that my father was born in 1904 and my mother, in 1907, hardly years of openness and acceptance of others.   I was born in the 1940’s and grew up in a world filled with bigotry and hatred, in a world of separate restrooms and in a city where the public swimming pool was closed because white people didn’t want to swim with black people.   Because of the way my parents raised me, I didn’t understand why anyone would object to this.    Thanks, Mom and Dad.  

I thought of this again about a week ago when I watched a PBS program about Oscar Hammerstein.  He was a man born in 1895, a man ahead of his time, a writer who asked questions and forced discussion on many issues, especially of race and prejudice, in the lyrics of his marvelous musicals.

In 1949, Hammerstein wrote South Pacific.   I was born in Kansas City, MO, a little off Broadway, but wonderful touring companies came through.  I saw South Pacific in the theater when I was eight.   After the show was over, I asked my mother about the song You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught.   She told me that some parents teach their children to hate other people, people who are different.  I asked her why.  She couldn’t explain.  Neither can I.

In Showboat written in 1927, Hammerstein  dealt with misogyny.  Julie, who had “black blood”,  was married to a white man, a union which was against the law.  I saw this movie when I was nine and couldn’t understand why two adults who love each other couldn’t marry.  I still don’t.

My parents raised me in church and taught me that the Gospel means acceptance and love for all,  no exceptions.  

Thanks, Mom and Dad.