Easters Past ....

Happy Easter one and all!

I wanted to leave you with some remembrances past of the holiday of Easter.  We'll be back to discussing my family linage and all things relative (pun intended).   I have added a playlist of 2 of my favorite Easter hymns.   Play them if you want while you're reading today's post.

Coming from a Catholic background, we had to go to Mass Easter morning every year, and like they always say, those that don't worship weekly always show up on Easter and Christmas services.  I don't recall an Easter Mass that didn't have lines of people standing around the back and side of Church.  

We usually went out for brunch on Easter and then back home to see what all the Easter Bunny left us.   Each of kids with our baskets and always plenty of chocolates and sweets, and my favorite the big Chocolate Bunny.   I loved eating that bunny, ears first so he couldn't hear the rest of us. 

One Easter weekend my Mom had the family over, not sure if it was a mixture of Mom's family and Dad's, I just remember because the weather wasn't good outside, she hid colored eggs all over the house so all the young kids could look for them.   That was a fun holiday that year. 

There was the year that I remember Mom looking out the window and telling us the Easter Bunny was outside in the yard, bringing us our eggs.  I believed her, I always believed what the adults told me about such things....until I was old enough to know better.   I had pictured in my mind I would run outside to greet the Easter Bunny, but I didn't.   Part of me was too scared, cause I knew he was huge.  

Easter is the highlight of the Christian faith, when Jesus died for our sins and rose again on the third day.  When you're a kid you might not understand any of that part, but you always remember the eggs and beautiful Spring colors and bunnies. 

Enjoy your holiday those of you that Celebrate Easter!

Joy and Peace

He Is Risen !

Symbol of new life and rebirth

Mom's Family ....

Okay, so I misspoke in a prior post.  Mom was one of 10 kids.  She had 3 older sisters, and 6 brothers.  I couldn't imagine having that big of a family...   Not sure if they all were living in the house at the same time, because of the age difference of the oldest and the youngest, both boys, but even so, many had to share the same bed.   I was complaining in an earlier post about sharing a bed with my sister, that was sharing with one other person.  I cannot imagine sharing a single bed of any size with 2 or 3 others.

Having never met my Grandpa (Frank), I have not much to say on him.  I don't recall many stories about him, I was after all one of the youngest of his grand kids.  I think there were several of us he never met because he died in the 1956, kind of right in the middle when all his brood were off having or adding to their own families.  I just know he and some of his sons worked at building houses. 

After Grandpa died, three of Mom's brothers moved their families down to the Baton Rouge area to build homes.  I'm guessing they found a market where new homes were needed down South.  I got to meet all my LA cousins when I was 5 years old.   Mom and Dad got plane tickets and we all headed down there to visit for a few days.  I don't recall the flight to and from Baton Rouge.  I only have a few memories at all.  My Aunt Dot (married to Uncle Lambert) had a Chihuahua dog that barked and barked and scared me senseless.  We slept in a room, and it seemed like we slept on the floor in sleeping bags under a pool table.  Don't know why, just remember looking up at the underside of a table.  And I remember Aunt Mary Jo (married to Uncle Chip) scaling the catfish that some of the Uncles caught and I high tailed out of the kitchen when I saw all the blood in the sink. 

I was most fond of my Aunt Mary.   She had the Southern accent I loved, and she was the only relative I remember that gave hugs and kisses.  I loved that!!!   She'd call all the kids "sugar" when she answered their questions.  Mary was married to Mom's brother Maurice.  They were married nearly 50 years when she got melanoma and died from complications of the treatment while in the hospital.   Thankfully Brian and I had decided to go visit my relatives in LA the Summer before.  We only got to see them, and I truly believe that God worked that out just the way want He intended.  I got to see LA as an adult and have even more good memories of my Aunt Mary.  Sweet lady for sure!

Now Mom had 3 other brothers that never moved out of the metro area.   One was my Godfather Cyril, he was married twice, he lost his first wife Hazel when I was eight.  I remember his 2nd wife more, Aunt Marie.  Then there was Uncle Hubert (married to Aunt Margie).  He passed away the year my Dad was diagnosed with Bipolar disease.  Not sure what took his life, but Mom's family is plagued all around with heart disease and blood clotting issues.   Cyril had a few kids, Hubert had a huge brood like his parents.  And then there is my Uncle Francis.  He's the only bachelor, and still alive and kicking...though not like he used to do when he was in a Square Dance club many moons ago.  He takes care of driving his 2 widowed sisters (my Mom and my Aunt Alberta). 

Mom lost one sister a couple years ago, her name was Aunt Marcella.  Then there is Aunt Rosalie, she just celebrated 70 years of marriage to her loving husband, my Uncle Andy.  And Aunt Alberta, who goes by Berti, she lost her husband Alfred way back when I was a kid.   Uncle Francis drives his sisters to family events and to play cards wherever they are doing so.  Aunt Berti is 95 years old and doesn't get out much anymore.   Back in the day, Uncle Francis had everyone to his house, barbecue, chatter and card games, and LAUGHTER, that's all you would hear at his place all day long.  Kids roaming in and out of the rooms and outside.  We always had fun on that side of the family. 

And you know who nurtured this happy family and laughter and ritual of card games?   My lovely Grandma.   I have lots of memories of her.  She taught us 3 kids how to play simple card games, and all the Aunts and some of the Uncles and few of the cousins would love to sit at the big kitchen table and play card games that went quick and elicited laughter and fun times.   Grandma was a good cook, my sister and I found out one Easter when we stayed with her, and woke to smells of bacon and eggs, and every morning listening to the singing of "The Lord's Prayer" on the local am station.   Yes we had fun with Grandma and loved visiting her.   In 1973 when the big rivers all flooded, Grandma came and stayed with us.  That was fun!   The following year, when I was only 7, Grandma died after having a severe stroke, blood clots in her legs that had her lose a leg and then her life.  Hers was the first funeral I ever remember, and the first time I ever saw my Mother cry. 

  ....  family is the ever evolving group of people that give rise to memories and gives life meaning.

 

My Grandma and Grandpa Saale on their wedding day Sept. 14, 1915

Posting boo boo....

Let me interupt this blog for those that "follow" my post.  On the Reading List page of Blogger, you will see my original post of March 28 titled "Extended Family".   This post was removed and replaced and Blogger seems to not want to update the list correctly.  If you go to that page, just click on the "HOME" link and it will take you to the correct post....the correct post is dated March 29.  

Thanks.

Mom ...

Mom was one of 10 kids.

Mom's mother lived in Portage Des Sioux, a farm town not that far away from us. Grandpa died in 1956, 10 years before I was born. Mom was the youngest of 4 girls. I always brag on the fact that she was so smart, she skipped 1st grade, or maybe kindergarten. She graduated high school when she was 16 years old. I am not quite sure but I don't think all of her siblings finished their schooling. Families that lived on farms didn't always have all the young-ins finish school. Many of them just worked and then married young and started their own families.

My Mom though had a different calling in high school. She went into a convent and lived in that order for I believe about 19 years. During her years as a nun, she worked at a hospital in their office or billing area. The convent or the Archdiocese paid for her to go to the university and receive a Bachelor's degree in one of the business related degrees. I don't know for sure which one. After Vatican II she left the convent, and went on to work at a construction company as a payroll clerk. It was there that she met my Dad. It was only a short time there after they got acquainted with each other, Dad as the bookkeeper, that they started dating (courting as they called it back then).

I never really asked my Mom why she decided to leave the order and live as a lay person and then get married. She was 37 when she married, and 38 when she had me...and 41 when she finished having all 3 of us. One of my memories of some of this was recalling that when I asked how old she was (I was under the age of 10) she always said she was 33. When I was 12, I figured out that was not possible. By then I figured out how old she really was when I was born, and confronted her and said she had been fibbing to us all our lives, she never was 33 during my lifetime. Funny how women lie about their age. I have never lied about my age, I don't care if anyone asks, man or child. It's a number. You're really only as old as you feel at heart.

When I was in high school, one of my classes involved writing an answer to an essay question on a final for the semester. Probably my Composition class. I wrote about my mom. I was proud of her and looked up to her as far as taking care of us kids, and taking care of my Dad after his Bipolar diagnosis. And I wanted so badly to follow her footsteps and go to the university. That never happened. It was somewhere during the next few years after graduating from high school, that I lost that pride to call my Mom, MOM. I think it had to do with meeting new people, meeting their parents and seeing how different a life these people had...that I didn't have. I felt gypped out of something....and I felt that for a very long time. And that fed into a disproval of my Mom's reasons for saying no to me a lot of times over the years on a lot of things. I just never got close to my Mom. And I kinda regret that now. So often I will ask her stuff now and she doesn't remember much from that long ago. I feel I missed my chance to understand what was going on back in my childhood that she was the Mom who said NO so many times?

.... when we get older, sometimes we appreciate our parents, read on, there's more on this.

Not Exactly Mr. Roger's Neighborhood...

There were tons of girls in the neighborhood I grew up in.  Some boys, though most of the girls didn't hang with them too much.  I hung with whoever would have me.   And I mean that literally.

I had the hardest time making friends.  Thankfully some of the families were quite friendly to everyone and the parents didn't mind who hung with who, as long as the parents knew where their own children were.  

I'd have to say there were 3 places we hung at the most when we all got together.  I think our place was probably the most frequented.  Not sure exactly why, but my thought is that because my sister was very popular among any group she was in, everyone liked to be at our house. 

Our neighbor's down the street, that's where I loved to spend most of my time.  They had 3 girls and 1 boy, he was the youngest.  Their oldest, Tricia was in my grade, although after a couple years at my elementary school her parents sent her onto the Catholic grade school downtown. 

Tricia taught me how to play the piano, at least the basics of it.  I loved to learn to play!  Her mom let me come down just about any time and practice.   I loved playing "When The Saints Come Marchin' In."  I was pretty good at it, made few mistakes and learned to play it by heart.  This was really cool, because later on in the 6th grade my Music Teacher put us in groups and we had to come up with our own musical presentation, and I chose that song and played the piano while my partners played other instruments for accompaniment.  We did rather well for 12 year olds!!! 

Later on I hung with Tricia's younger sister, Sharon Ann.  She went by the nickname of Shan.  She and I and one other, Melissa, were nearly inseparable most weekends.  We'd end up at Melissa's Grandmother's house and like clockwork, we'd hit the ice cream and stay up all night goofing around and then having our own little slumber party.  I loved those.  Didn't always sleep well away from home, but there I sure did. 

There were other girls in the neighborhood I hung with and one was ostracized for being kind of a bully.  I still hung with her until some not so cool things went down.  She wasn't always nice to me, and she had this air of superiority of intelligence over me, that drove me to be more shy around some people than I normally would have been.  We stopped hanging together in high school.  I had to move onto to other friends who treated me better.  I believe now I know why she was so off the wall nasty.   Her parents had divorced, her mother remarried and I believe she didn't like her stepfather at all.  He was pretty bossy to his stepkids.  Out of respect for her, I choose not to mention her name.  I forgive her for all the rotten things she did to me and said to me.  Although some of these things profoundly affected my self-worth, I know now she was really having a hard time with life back then and I was the one she took it out on, well, me and her sister.  Sometimes she wasn't that bad to me, she always called to want me to hang with her, and in that respect maybe she liked me.  I just choose to forgive her because it was so long ago, and that recent act of forgiveness has helped me move on and be a better person, and heal a 3 decade old wounded heart. 

The boys in the neighborhood also were a sore spot for me back in the day.  They were honestly just out to make fun of me ever which way they could.  3 of them were brothers, and the middle son was the meanest to me.  I don't know why.  He was a bit older than me, I didn't have classes with him ... I don't even think he went to any schools I attended.  He was just one onery cuss to me.  He had a knack of making fun of my attention problem and loved to call me "wooden ears" in front of all the kids that happened to be in the neighbor's yard.  They always laughed at that, and that hurt a lot.  Even my own siblings made fun of me and honestly, I didn't feel comfortable hanging outside when this nasty boy was out there. 

Often times I would be by myself, in my room, drawing, painting, listening to music....hours on end.  It was respite from the kids that liked to make fun of me...and liked to belittle everything I said or did.  I really never told my Mom about all this stuff.  I don't know that she was home most of the time it was going on.  I just learned to avoid mean people.  I really needed to learn how to stick up for myself, but I didn't.     This would prove to be a very hard thing to outgrow or unlearn during my life. 

             ......  things get bumpy when we interact with others, keep on reading.

My Family's Faith ...

If you have been reading along so far, I have been talking about my family of origin and some people of my youth that affected my life's journey.  Besides babysitters and elementary school, my youth also was about faith and religion classes.  

In January 1966 my parents got married after a 6 month courtship.  They went on their honeymoon in the Bahamas and visited a few of the Islands, brought back many unique bottles of liquor and yep, got pregnant with yours truly.   Mom was from a huge Catholic family, and Dad was not.  This all happened right after the finalization of Vatican II and finally Catholics were allowed to marry non-Catholics but with some unique agreements by the non-Catholic.  Mom HAD to raise her children Catholic....Dad consented. 

I was supposed to be born around Halloween of that year, but decided I wanted to stay in the comfy cozy place in my mother's womb for 3 more weeks and was born on November 18th.  My Dad just celebrated his 28th birthday and my parents just purchased the home I grew up in.  Then later that month I was baptized at St. Cletus Parish.  I would belong to that parish until 1988.  

I don't recall all the reasons that we kids didn't go to Catholic Elementary school, but because of that we were required to get "catechized" in PSR classes.  I went until 9th grade, my siblings only until 8th grade we each were confirmed.  After 9th grade, I got a job that had me working every evening after school and couldn't go to PSR, and by then the classes were so boring to me, I just didn't care to go. 

My most memorable time at PSR was when the principal Sister Marian came to my 3rd grade class and explained what Heaven would be like.  She said it would be 10,000 times better than Earth as we know it.   It would be 10,000 times prettier and perfect.  Our bodies would be perfect.  No eyeglasses to wear (I had to get those in 5th grade), no braces, no injuries, no broken anything.  No death and we would be in the presence of God.  I was so taken by the image in my head of what Heaven would be like.   I still am, though my image has changed a lot from when I was 9 years old. 

I believed everything my PSR teachers told me.  Why wouldn't I?   They were adults, they knew more than I did, basically I thought they knew everything!   My Mom made sure we kids got to Mass and reminded us to go to confession once a year and not to fight and disobey ....  I hated going to confession.  I was scared of Father Brauner, he just seemed like a mean ole priest to me...  I knew I would forget the Act of Contrition, I stumbled all the time, I really tried to get out of it for as long as possible, but my conscience told me to go, and I would.  Eventually.  

It's funny that had I been born into a family of another religion, I would have grown up knowing that religion and culture and did what they do to be "right with God" per what the adults taught me.  This idea nagged at me off and on from high school until, well, now.   I took for granted that being Catholic, I knew what I had to do to get to Heaven, but when I went off to college in my 20s, I learned a whole lot about many religions and different ways of being in the world that were totally different from what I was taught.  

This is what this blog is all about!   My spiritual journey and how I dealt with the new ideas I learned and how I compared them to what I was raised in.    This ride is a life long one so it seems.  There is oh so much to tell.....

             ....  if you're so inclined, hang on in there, I got much more to tell you!



"Raise Your Children To..."

 

If you want to see more kindness in the world…
… Raise your children to be kind.

If you want to see more honesty in the world…
… Raise your children to be honest.

If you want to see more positive values in the world…
… Raise your children and teach them positive values.

If you want to see more honor in the world…
… Raise your children to be honorable.

If you want to see more love in the world…
… Raise your children to love unconditionally.

Raise your children to be the change you want to see in the world!

 

~J. Charest

Education's Where It's At ....

My favorite teacher at Blackhurst Elementary School was my 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Hettich.  She was a wonderful teacher, she was pretty, and she made learning fun. 

She let me draw things, not part of the regular art classes we had during each month, but just different things and she'd hang them on the wall in the classroom.  I loved to give her stuff.  It got displayed and I felt happy she enjoyed them.  I don't remember any of the specific things just that she let them be hung on the wall.  That gave me such a warm feeling inside, to know my favorite teacher did that. 

Her daughter went to France for her senior year in high school and Mrs. Hettich had her come speak to us about her travels and what she learned over there.  When we were allowed to ask questions, I raised my hand in the air so high, and when she called on me,  the only burning question I had in my head was "do they have popcorn over there?"   And she said "no."   I quipped back, "Well I don't think my Mom would enjoy that then, because that is her favorite snack."   What a silly thing for a kid to ask, yet it pointed to who else was on my mind at that moment, my Mom.  This would not be the only time my Mom came up in something I discussed or worked on in my school projects. 

We found out early on in the school year that Mrs. Hettich had hypoglycemia - probably because kids liked to bring in stuff for her all the time, and she had to pass on the sweets.  They would make her blood sugar go up and then crash later.  We all remembered this at the end of the school year.  

One day when she was still on her lunch break, all of the class discussed what we would like to do for Mrs. Hettich as a going away gift.  One of the kids said his Dad worked at a place that makes trophies, and so we decided to give her a trophy for the World's Best Teacher.   And for 11 and 12 year olds, somehow we came up with the money to have that made.   I suppose money from allowances or kids' parents was how that happened.  Where there was a will, there was a way.  

We also decided we would have a party, and bring foods she could eat and enjoy, not just all the snack, sweets and junk kids like to eat, though some of that would be there too.  I couldn't tell you what I brought, but I do know she was so surprised and overcome by all the attention, and the trophy I think made her cry.  She was a marvelous teacher, and like in some movies I have seen over the years, we kids repaid her for her loving care and concern for us and our education.  

I realized somewhere along the way that she belonged to the same parish my family went to.  I would always search her out at Mass and sometimes I would see her and a big grin would come across my face.  And other times, she wasn't there.  She was the first teacher I really cared about and was one of the reasons I had teaching as an aspiring career goal.  But that goal never materialized, and it would take me many years to figure out why.

                  ..... teachers were not the only people that impressed up on me as you'll see soon enough.



                        

When Others Take Care of You ...

My Mom worked outside the home, and my Dad did as well until I was 12.   This meant we kids had to have someone else take care of us before we were old enough to go to school.  

Often times for short stints we were placed with Aunts or older cousins.   Mom mostly had relatives come and stay with us at our home, a place we were familiar with.  Where our toys were, where are beds were.  I believe that I enjoyed this much more than being drug to someone's home in an unfamiliar environment.  

The worst of memories I have was when my Mom sent us to some strange woman's house that Mom learned about from someone she knew.  I absolutely detested being there.  I was out of sorts, missed my Mom, and just did not care to be there at all.  I was 5 years old.   I believe it was this memory that etched something inside me at such a young age that I was not loved completely.  I did not understand why I had to be there.  This woman was not nice, did not play with us like my Dad did, and separated us when nap time came.  At home I shared a place with my sister, there I did not. 

My favorite caretaker was my cousin Kathy.  She was fun to be around, she took us on rides, took us out for Halloween while my parents had a party with the Aunts and Uncles.  She played cool music, she sang, she was just my favorite cousin in the whole wide world! 

I believe I always loved hanging around my relatives that cared for me, cause they were familiar.  I liked familiar.  I hated change, I hated new environments.  Maybe that was common for young kids to go through...as they learned to be autonomous and be in the world.  If that was the case, I didn't fare well through the rest of my formative years, cause things were never ever consistent in my life as a child and as a teenager.  My yearning to know how to be in the world would never go away.  I still have issues with that now at age 46, but with honest reflection back to those days, things were not out of control for me, I just didn't understand what was truly going on, and I think my parents weren't aware of how all this was affecting me.  How does a 5 year old explain fear of the mean ole babysitter?  How does a 12 year old explain how much she misses her Mom that left the brood to visit family in another state?

What is clear to me now is that not having some more information about what was going on and why, at key moments in my life, I had to create a reason in my head.  Often it was that no one cared about me.   How wrong I was......

                                    .....  stay tuned for the next chapter in this saga. 

It Started With My Family...

Okay so I learned A LOT about how to be in the world from my family.  Right or wrong, my parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins taught me many things. 

I was a shy kid growing up. Not too many friends, not really close to my siblings, and when visiting at relative's homes, I believe I was pretty invisible.   At school is where I shined more.  I loved school!  And I was pretty darn good in the 3 R's.   But my favorite classes were my art classes.  And my favorite place to be, in school or out, was the library.  I never got the impression that my parents really knew all this about me.   I got good grades and pretty much could do my homework on my own.  It just always seemed that it was expected I would be smart and self-sufficient in my academic studies.  This would play a part later on in my education after high school.

I have a sister, who is a year and half younger than me.  Once she was old enough to sleep in a big people bed, we had to share a bed together.  My brother came along a year and half after my sister, and once he was old enough to sleep in a big people bed, the three of us had to share a room together.  Me on the top bunk, the younger two on the bottom bunk.  We learned to share a room, but heaven's to Betsy, we were not known for being model sharers of toys or anything else.  My sister recounts that she was told to sit between me and brother in the back seat of the old Dodge Gremlin because my brother and I just didn't get along.   That would really wouldn't change much as we got older. 

My sister and I weren't close, but since we were both girls pretty close in age, we did get along a little better.  We sat next to each other at the family dinner table, during the years we all 5 ate together as a family.  I don't remember too many fights at any meals....but we were different in more ways than just birth order.  In high school she was the popular one with her huge group of friends.  She always seemed to be the one that controlled everything.  I always wanted to be in her group, but never really was allowed, except when some came to our house to play cards.  Once she was out of the house, we really did nothing together.  And as time went on this wouldn't change much either.

My Mom raised us 3 kids in a most practical manner, making sure we had a roof over our heads, food to eat, and clothing.   Until we hit high school.   Once I was old enough to hold a job, I had to work to earn money for a car and its expenses, my own clothes, and my own hygiene products.  Not a lot of outward affection was beheld on us, and this would play a most huge part in my development as a person and as a Child of God.  

Finally, there's my Dad.  He was a unique soul.  I have good and bad memories growing up with him.  Until recently, I dwelt on the bad stuff more than any of the good stuff.  It seemed to outweigh everything.  Dad worked until I was 12, then suffered a mental breakdown and was diagnosed with Bipolar Disease.  A terrible disease that took more than a year to properly be diagnosed.   When we were young kids, he played with us.   We had fun with our Dad!  After his diagnosis, nothing was the same, and I never grew to be close to him.   And in 2000 my Dad was killed after getting hit by a car.   All of these tragedies would play a huge part of my ups and downs in moods over the years. 

And this is just the tip of the iceberg of the things to recount from my youth and early adolescence.  Opening up about my family was always something I wanted to do, but wasn't sure how to do so and definitely not an easy thing to do.  I learned a lot from these four people in my life.  Some good, some misguided, some not resolved until recently, and a few not resolved yet. 

                                 ..........  hang on for more.  The ride gets bumpy from here on out.

Life Can Be So Confusing...

I always thought I understood how things worked in the world I knew.  

                     BOY WAS I WRONG !!  

We are brought up usually in a family with guiding tenets set down by whatever faith or moral compass our parents and/or caregivers shared with us.  We learn things from our parents, as well as peers, teachers, preachers, coworkers, strangers, and the cashier at the grocery store.  When we are little we take at face value the words people with authority over us as gospel....until we grow up and learn new ideas. 

I have wrestled with many new ideas since I graduated high school.  Do I have to follow in the footsteps of my parents?  What do I really want to be when I grow up?  How do I ever get along with all these different personalities?  How am I to be in this huge world?  How do you know there is a Creator and does this Creator really love me?    

These are some of the big questions among many that were there in my head all the time.  I'd ask mentors and friends often where I was going wrong in my life.  Why wasn't I happy like others I was around.  I'd ask, "How do you know you're doing what you were meant to do in this life?"  I would ask 20 people the same question and get awfully different answers.  Nothing seemed to help me GET IT.

When I was in my early twenties I thought I would study the World's religions and see if my Catholic faith was the best one to stay with (aside from getting college credit for a degree).  I got more confused, the more I read.  I drifted away from the Church for 15 years.  Then a series of things happened and I was slowly being pulled back in.  That was a little over 14 years ago.  Then more of life's confusing ways came to rain down around me, and I was adrift again.  That was 4 years ago.  And now recently I have had another pull toward something.  It's not quite in the same direction as before.  This is totally different.  And so starts my story.

                               This blog is my place to tell others my journey in life. 

                                                    Blessings to you if you stay to read on.