The One I Didn't Want to Write

If you've been under a rock and haven't heard about Rush Limbaugh's latest gaff, well, you've been under a rock. You know, I've been on the planet long enough to see lots of changes.

> I saw the images on my TV of the fire hoses and the German Shepherds, and I was old enough to be shocked that people would treat other people with such cruelty and disrespect.

> My best girl friend once had to spend frighteningly long weeks planning and arranging and being secretive in order to terminate an unplanned pregnancy at a too young age, when it was illegal in most states, and certainly not something to discuss with one's parents.

> My best gay man friend committed suicide rather than face his life after he was arrested for being gay!

Forty years go by. We think we've evolved. Birth Control is legal. Abortion is (sort of) legal. But, according to Wikipedia, certain sexual activities are still illegal, between consenting adults, in seventy (70) countries, and in the U.S. in 14 states until 2003 *

Fast forward to 2012, the absurdity of a male only congressional panel in a discussion about birthcontrol. Rush Limbaugh's rant/personal attack against a brilliant young law student testifying on the uses of Birth Control Pills other than contraception.

I am using lots of italics here because even though I am wise, and have been around the block a few times, I'm appalled, shocked, outraged, etc. about all of this.

In my city last week, a hearing was held at a City Council Meeting on whether discrimination in the workplace against citizens who are gay, lesbian, or transgender should be illegal. People actually stood up and argued against it. One even expressed concern that it could cause lawsuits against employers. Um, if companies are using sexual orientation or identity as a basis for employment, they should be sued. (Sorry about the italics again.)

Having said all of the above, and not as articulately as I would like to, I'd like to recommend you read this column that ran in the Omaha World-Herald this morning. Written by a very bright young columnist with the unlikely name of Rainbow Rowell. Here is a link to Let's get down to (lady) business: http://omaha.com/article/20120311/LIVING/703119953#rainbow-let-s-get-down-to-lady-business

I didn't want to write this. I wanted to write about Spring coming, the finches in my back hard turning yellow, the dogwood down the street coming into bloom. But I had to let you all know about Rainbow. She said it right.

Maybe next week I'll write about my experiences with menopause. Gotta get the ball rolling on that education about Lady Parts!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad


*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_law
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_States

Location:Omaha

Teen Drama redux

My son was a teenaged father. There was a bit of drama back then. For a week or so.

Then he picked himself and walked purposefully into a sort of adulthood. Don't get me wrong, there was still some drama... Like the time his pregnant girlfriend threatened to call Child Protective Services on me if I didn't drive over to her parents' house one night at ten o'clock to give him a ride home. Or the time, after they got their own apartment when I got the tearful, frantic call at One am to take their cat to the vet. ~sigh~

I'll never forget the look on my son's face the first time I saw him hold his son. His smile could have outshone the sun that cold winter day.

But all in all, I hand it to the guy. Those first couple of years of fatherhood for him were terribly difficult and he faced his changed life with courage and determination to do right by his children. He grew into his own adulthood with two tiny children, eventually, all by himself.

Fast forward eighteen years. My son married a woman who became Mother to those first two children for the past twelve years. The now grown up father has two teenaged children, a wife who adores him, and an additional three kids. A sprawling family of children whose ages range from two through eighteen. The oldest of whom just moved into his first apartment, is attending college, learning code, playing guitar, practicing parkour, and making all the (hopefully) right mistakes.

The second teenager is a sixteen year old girl. A tall, beautiful, brilliant, and naive young woman. Naive with a capital N.

The kids have been home schooled for the last ten years, learning fast. So earlier this year my granddaughter joined her brother and began taking classes at our local Community College. The transition has been predictable. From my point of view anyway. She's spreading her wings. Did I mention she's terribly naive?

Older boyfriend. Sneaking around. You know the drill. Oh by the way, she's still making straight As. Grin.

Her parents are frantic on the inside. A little terrified, I think. They are remarkably cool and calm on the outside. Her father, the former teenager, refers to himself as stern yet loving. Taking advice from his mother (that would be me) as he should. In other words, he listens, hears everything I say, then makes his own decisions. Because he's a good father. A good man. He is taking care of business while being respectful of his child.

She, being Naive with a Capital N, doesn't get it of course. But she will. Because she's a good kid, beautiful and brilliant. She is learning some very important lessons.

I can't wait until she figures it out. She's going to be amazed, and really impressed with her parents!

I am so proud I could bust.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Omaha

The Horrible Disease

A thousand miles from here, a childhood friend is burying her son.  He died of that often fatal illness, schizophrenia. Another childhood friend, when telling of it described it as "this horrible disease that told him he had no disease."

My heart breaks for my old friend, who had watched her child try to cope with his mental illness for years.  In various communications about memorial services, times, places and such, it became clear that there are others among those of us who spent time together as children, who have watched helplessly, as our own children fight the unseen specter of the many faces of mental illness.

When I was a child, growing up in the 1950s and 60s, we didn't talk about such things. And frankly, not much was known about some of the various disorders we now have names for: ADD, ADHD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, autism, Aspergers, even depression.

I graduated school with about 50 women, some of whom I had known since preschool.  We all grew up in the same city, and most of us have attended at least one reunion.  When we were in our 20s and 30s, we went on crash diets, bought new outfits, plastered smiles on our faces and went to our reunions firm in the knowledge that no one knew of our deepest secrets, the impending divorces,  financial troubles,  problem children.  But we came together because we love each other.   By the time we attended our last reunion we had been through enough together that most of us no longer worried about "looking good".

For example, when Katrina hit, friends from all over the country rallied to help our New Orleans classmate get her hands on some money until she could go back to her job.  That one event opened me up to the fact that in many ways, our childhood friends remain our closest friends, even across vast distances of time and space.

In 2010, when I returned to the city of my birth for a reunion, I met with a childhood friend who has Aspergers Syndrome, a form of autism.  She told me how when we were small, her parents didn't know what to do with her.  How she herself didn't understand what was "wrong" with her, and turned to alcohol at a young age in an attempt to cope. She told me how, as a recovering alcoholic, she now understands a little more about herself.  We spent an enjoyable hour together, I was able to make amends for the thoughtless cruelty I, among others, treated her with when we were children, and she was able to say, she hadn't really noticed but forgave me anyway.  She also told me how hard she works to make eye contact with everyone she meets, and I was able to tell her I thought she did just fine.   I left our meeting feeling refreshed and renewed.

With the death of one friend's child, others of us rally around her.  Those of us who have children with mental illness now openly discuss and support each other.  Mental illness is an incurable disease.  It is sometimes invisible.  It is insidious, treacherous, and crafty.  It tells some of its sufferers that they have no disease. It requires constant vigilance, but most cases it is treatable.  It is also exhausting.   Its sufferers must cope with it day by day, breath by breath.  My own loved one suffered for most of his life before finally, after several suicide attempts, he now has a tenuous hold on understanding himself, sees his doctor regularly, takes his meds, and seems to have let go of misplaced shame.

Day by day.

Breath by breath.

Those of us who have loved ones who suffer from mental illness need to hold fast to one another, we need to understand that it's not our fault, and we need to give each other hugs.  Lots of big, bone-crushing hugs.