Family

I Now Pronounce You

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It is now legal in the United States to marry anyone who also wants to marry you.  I’m not exactly sure why we needed a Supreme Court decision to bring us to this place, especially in the 21st century, but here we are.  In spite of the apocalyptic forecasts I have seen on Facebook over the last few days predicting that God’s wrath is now at the explosive point and ready to cover the country in steaming magma, we seem to have turned a corner where human relationships are concerned.  Of course, there have been the occasional displays of defiance we would expect from certain pockets of the country, namely the Deep South Bible Belt communities where homosexual activity is hidden, along with the whiskey bottle, K-Y Lubricant, the porn websites, and the patch of marijuana tucked neatly between the rows of tall corn stalks or mixed in with the soybean plants.

By far the most often-cited reason I have seen for those objecting to gay marriage is the idea that such an arrangement is in direct opposition to God’s intention for humanity, where marriage is the union of one man and one woman in holy matrimony . . .  period.  Not a woman with a woman, not a man with a man, not a man with a goat, not a woman and her cat, not a man and his voice-activated computer operating system.  The Supreme Court decision merely affirms what a majority of states had already decided on their own, which thankfully at this point only deals with marriage between two human beings — probably about as far as we need to push it and still have a reasonable assurance of consent from both parties.

God apparently has fairly strict and narrow rules for marriage, not to mention sexual positions, contraception, and Sunday alcohol sales.  If the one-woman-one-man plan is what the Bible or any other religious text teaches you about God and marriage, then you have every right to live your life according to those guidelines as long as you can do so without infringing on the rights of others.  You can encourage your family and friends to do the same.  If you are influential enough to have a whole congregation of people who voluntarily abide by your religious convictions, that’s just peachy.  However, what you should not be able to do in this country is use those convictions to create, sustain, and enforce public policies that are no longer upheld by a good portion of the population.

Marriage ceremonies are no doubt an important part of religious practice all around the world, which is perfectly fine.  But here’s a news flash: marriage does not BELONG to religion.  Atheist couples should be able to publicly proclaim their love, devotion, and commitment to one another, free of the interference of a church, synagogue, temple, or mosque.  Their union should be recognized by local, state, and federal governments as a legally-binding contract, even if the marriage is performed by a secular, government official instead of a priest, minister, rabbi, qazi or madhun.  Oh wait, that is EXACTLY what happens with many atheists couples, and it has been happening legally for a long time in this country.  Wonder what God’s view of an atheist marriage is?  Hmmmmm.

There is no place for legislation in the United States based solely on religious teachings, which is obviously the source of objection to same-sex marriage.  If you are in such a position of authority, either through election or appointment by elected officials, you have an obligation to put your personal wishes and desires aside to serve your constituents, and this includes your religious views.  If doing so is too difficult for you, then I suggest you either find some other job where your religious beliefs won’t be compromised (and keep in mind that not all private-sector jobs will accommodate your faith either), OR you should find a country where your religious beliefs are enforced.  Good luck with that second option.

I hope same-sex marriage is here to stay.  The benefits to loving gay and lesbian couples is only now being fully understood by the heterosexual community.  One of the main objectives of our Constitution is to protect the dignity of our citizens and to secure their right to pursue happiness.  While it seems a bit embarrassing that we needed a Supreme Court decision to make it official, I am relieved that ALL people who want to be married in this country can now do so, complete with the accompanying privileges, obligations, and benefits.  You may kiss the . . . spouse!

We Liked Grandma So Much Better Without Teeth

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I introduced my maternal grandmother in an earlier post.  From my description of her then, it should be apparent that my grandmother had an incredible sense of humor, a trait I would like to think I inherited.  She had five grandchildren.  I was the last and the only male.  She absolutely adored me.  For most of my childhood, she lived in the house with my family (my parents and my older sister and me).  Both of my parents worked, so she served as a live-in nanny.  She also did a good portion of the cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc.

She received a great deal of pleasure from making my sister and my cousins laugh to the point of losing our breath.  If we wet our pants, she probably secretly considered herself victorious — mission accomplished!  She would stop at nothing to entertain us, including removing her teeth, putting a nylon stocking over her head, and then pulling it up while dragging the skin of her face up with it to distort her features to almost frightening proportions.  Some years after her death, my memory of these times became almost nostalgic, and I decided to write a funny song about her.  It must be fairly entertaining, as I have been asked to perform it many times for groups of people who never knew my grandmother or any other members of my extended family.  I include it here as a way of recording it and as a tribute to someone whose impact on my life was far greater than I realized when she was still with me.

WE LIKED GRANDMA SO MUCH BETTER WITHOUT TEETH

I recall the trips to Grandma’s house when we were little boys
Lots of food, candy, cakes, and pies, and she always gave us toys
And she told funny stories that would nearly split your side
But when she pulled her dentures out, we laugh until we cried

Gums on the bottom and gums on the top
If she talked real fast her lips would flop
Her nose hooked over and touched her chin
And we’d start laughing all over again
And when she sang her mouth was just as round as a wreath
We liked Grandma so much better without teeth

Now there’s something about a toothless grin that I just can’t explain
But when Grandma turned and gave a smile, we nearly went insane
And if she used her Polygrip her speech was never slurred
But Lord when she forgot it we couldn’t understand a word

Gums on the bottom and gums on the top
If she talked real fast her lips would flop
Her nose hooked over and touched her chin
And we’d start laughing all over again
A handmade set of ivory chops just simply can’t be beat
But we liked Grandma so much better without teeth

Now I know you love your grandkids and I’m sure they love you too
So if you want to see them giggle, then here’s what you must do
It sure can be depressing when your hair gets gray and thin
But when your molars start to go that’s when the fun begins

Gums on the bottom and gums on the top
If she talked real fast her lips would flop
Her nose hooked over and touched her chin
And we’d start laughing all over again
I’m sure it was a challenge when she tried to chew her meat
But we liked Grandma so much better without teeth

Gums on the bottom and gums on the top
If she talked real fast her lips would flop
Her nose hooked over and touched her chin
And we’d start laughing all over again
Couldn’t have loved her better had she been cursed with stinkin’ feet
We liked Grandma so much better
Oh I wish you could have met her
We liked Grandma so much better without teeth

My Grandmother’s Raunchy Side

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I was raised in a morally-conservative Southern Baptist home.  Most of the cousins that I knew best were all Southern Baptists, as well as many of my friends, mainly because my circle of friends largely came from our church.  Drinking alcohol was a sin, plain and simple.  Dancing was frowned upon but tolerated by the time I was a teenager in the 1970s.  My mother was not fond of playing cards, unless they were game-specific like Old Maids, and much later, Uno.  She was suspicious of regular playing cards because she associated them with gambling, another sin of the infidels.  Most of all, sex was something extremely private and reserved ONLY for the sanctity of marriage — end of discussion.  There was no wiggle room on this point at all.  And it was not a topic of conversation in our home, instructional or otherwise.

My maternal grandmother was also a strong Southern Baptist and beloved by many in our church.  She lived with us through all of my childhood and most of my adolescence.  My mother worked outside the home, so my sister and I were largely raised by our grandmother.  She held many of the same convictions that my mother did; however, there were times that her rural upbringing emerged, sometimes in irreverent ways.  She had some wonderful little “sayings” that verged on being nasty, which made her giggle to the point of losing her breath.  I always thought they were rather inconsistent with our family’s moral code, and I loved them.  Here are a few examples.

If someone in the room exclaimed that somebody “tooted,” she would rattle off this zinger: “The fox is the finder, the stink lays behind her!” Of course, this is an old variation of the later line: “The one who smelt it is the one who dealt it.”  Coming from my sweet grandmother, it was hilarious.  Speaking of farting, she did it quite often in our home and found it to be quite entertaining.

Another even more priceless example to me was what I heard my grandmother say one time when she saw a very tall woman with a very short man.  I will never forget it.  “Well, when they’re nose to nose his toes is in it, and when they’re toes to toes his nose is in it.”  Now that’s mighty raunchy humor coming from a Southern Baptist grandmother in the 1970s.  I have so many more wonderful memories about my grandmother that I intend to document in this blog at some point.  She inspired a song that I wrote and have performed many times, mostly because it has been requested so often, especially by seniors at gatherings where I have entertained.  It never fails to bring laughter, just like my grandmother did for us so many times.

No Easy Way to Say It

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Losing a family member to death leaves a significant empty space for those left behind.  The death of a parent summons feelings of vulnerability and a sense of one’s own mortality.  Even when death is an end to suffering, there is a certain finality to it that brings sadness.  However, even in the darkness of these times, there is plenty of humor that always accompanies the human comedy, and the recent death of my father is no exception.

I wrote last week about “the call” I received from the nursing home informing me that my father had passed away.  The words spoken by the facility’s representative reminded me of other testimonies I have heard from people who have received “the call.”  A couple of weeks before he died, my father had suffered from an infected lymph gland in his neck that was very inflamed and painful.  He was on some very strong antibiotics that zapped what little energy he had left at age 94, but it appeared that he was getting better and was strong enough to get out of bed.  His nurse told me that he had actually eaten dinner only an hour or so before he died.  So the representative who called had the unpleasant task of giving me news that by no means was a surprise but was nevertheless not altogether expected either.

Herein lies the comedy.  You have to wonder how nursing home personnel are trained to deliver such bad news to loved ones.  In this case, the voice on the other end of the phone said, “Mr. ————? I was calling to let you know there’s been a change in your father’s condition,” to which I replied, “Okay.”  And then she handed it to me: “He passed away this evening.”  Now, at this point, I began asking the predictable questions about how he was found, how he died, what time it happened, etc.  What I really wanted to say was, “Why yes, I would say that is a fairly significant change in his condition.”  It would be hard to immediately come up with a better example of the understatement of the year.

My wife has told many people the story of “the call” she received about her mother’s death, which occurred while she was in a rehab center only a day or so after my wife had been with her.  The nurse who called and delivered the message told my wife that her mother had “expired.”  Really?  Expired?  I realize now that this is a technical term used in the geriatric healthcare industry, but I can’t imagine why you would use that term when talking to the daughter of the deceased.  Expired?  Can we renew her?  Did we not put down a large enough deposit?  It makes the deceased sound more like a library card or a driver’s license.

The truth is that there is no easy way to tell a person that someone they love has died.  It’s bitter and heartbreaking.  It is so precise and final.  It defies couching or masking.  There is no sufficient euphemism, although we certainly do our best with words like “passed” or “passed away” or “crossed over.”  I don’t envy those who are charged with the duty of bearing the saddest news of all, but I can’t help but find the humor in delivery methods like these.  Expired?  Really?

The Legend of Bob Dylan

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My older son and I recently saw Bob Dylan and his band in concert.  My son is quite the connoisseur of classic pop music going back to before he was born, and to some extent, before I was born.  Going to this show was what he requested for his birthday because he feels certain that there won’t be too many more chances to see Dylan live, and judging from how frail the aging rocker looked on stage, I would agree.  While 73 doesn’t seem so old when considering how many of his contemporaries are still touring extensively, Dylan doesn’t seem to “get around” with the same agility of guys like Mick Jagger or Paul McCartney.

Just before the show began, the house lights went out and the stage was dark.  A single member of his band came out in the dark, picked up a guitar, and started playing a gentle, folksy tune.  It was like being in church.  When the lights went up, the rest of the band was in place, wearing matching outfits.  I leaned over to my son and said, “How often do you see band members dressed alike?”  He replied, “I never have.”  They were definitely representing a different era, when rock-n-roll was reaching adolescence and getting more rebellious, but there was still a touch of class and style left over from the very early days of the bands that accompanied Buddy Holly and Elvis.


President Barack Obama presents Bob Dylan with a Medal of Freedom (May 29, 2012)

Most people don’t become legends during their lifetimes, nor do they become iconic.  Bob Dylan is an exception.  Some of his songs clearly define the rock-n-roll era, especially the elements in the genre that are most significant historically: protest, reflection, freedom, and change.  More than any other popular musician and songwriter from my generation that I can recall, Bob Dylan has proven over and over again that rock-n-roll was never just about the music, and certainly not about beautiful voices.  Hell, he never even tried to make pretty sounds with his voice, that is, on the occasions that he decided to sing instead of speak his songs.  But I would argue with anyone that his lyrics were some of the most powerful and moving of that generation.

At this particular show, Bob Dylan sang an incredible variety of music in a short time. He was probably on stage for less than two hours altogether, but during that time, we heard folk, blues, country, reggae, and rock.   He never picked up a guitar, but he played a miniature grand piano, and of course, the harmonica.  The instrumental variety from his band was impressive, including tunes using a violin and a huge string bass.  It was clear that he was playing what he wanted to play, not what the crowd expected or necessarily wanted.  He didn’t include “Like a Rolling Stone,” which no doubt irritated some of the audience.  But he did play “Tangled Up In Blues” and “Blowing In the Wind.”  Dylan performed that last song as his finale for the single encore he gave, and true to form, he used a variation so different from the original recorded version that I didn’t even recognize it until he was into the chorus.  I leaned over to my son and said, “I almost didn’t recognize this one, the way he’s playing it.”  Looking straight ahead to the stage, admiring the legend, my son replied, “He’s earned the right to do it anyway he wants.”  I couldn’t agree more.

The Call

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On Saturday evening, I got the call.  Actually, the call came in the form of three voice mails left on my cell phone because I was at a musical event and had my phone turned completely off.  The calls and messages left were from the nursing home, where my father has spent that last five years of his life.  Most of those years could not really be characterized as “living” in the sense that most of us use the word.  Oddly enough, I just posted a few days ago about my sorrow in watching my dad’s recent, rapid decline.

Getting one voice mail from the nursing home is common; getting three back-to-back in a matter of a few minutes indicated something serious.  I have been expecting this call for quite a long time.  At times I have dreaded it, at others I have longed for it, which has been the case recently.  Had the call been to inform me that, due to either illness or accident, my father had been taken to the hospital, it would certainly have anguished me.  The last thing I wanted, any of us who knew him really wanted, was for him to go through the agony of multiple trips to the hospital for procedures to prolong a life not worth living anymore.

There is a certain finality to the words “Your father passed away this evening.”  At the age of 94, the phrase is not unexpected, and as I have indicated in this case, it has quietly been hoped for by friends and family.  He certainly was ready to go and had been for a few years.  He frequently expressed his astonishment that he was still alive. “I never dreamed I’d live this long,” he said many times when we visited him.  “I don’t know why the Lord is keeping me here.”  Good question.  I don’t know the answer.  I can’t say for certain, but maybe he knows the answer . . . now.

Summers Past

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Some families have favorite places that they go each year for vacation. I suspect this is still a trend as it was in the 1960s and 70s when my family vacationed almost every summer in Daytona Beach, Florida. It was a magical place with so much to see and do — almost like an extended amusement park with the main attraction being the incredibly popular beach.  I learned how to swim in Daytona; how to body surf, throw a Frisbee, play miniature golf, and so much more. Some of the happiest times I remember with my family growing up were spent there.  

  

It’s no surprise that going back as an adult, with my own children, was a completely different experience.  The carefree hours on the beach were replaced with keeping constant watch on children to make sure they were still in sight in the breakers or on the sand.  Sleeping late was replaced by getting up early enough to watch the sun rise over the ocean horizon — a spiritual and peaceful moment.  Begging for money for snacks on the beach gave way to worrying about how I was to pay the inevitable credit card bill that would all-too-quickly follow the one week of family fun.

Now that my sons are adults (or almost), my visits to the beach are different yet again.  The commercial overload of the Boardwalk and Highway A1A are not quite as appealing as they once were.  My wife and I live farther away from the coast now than I ever have lived before.  I need time at the beach occasionally for my sanity, so I get there as often as I can.  I am sure that I will get back to Daytona at some point in the near future, and I want to take my wife with me because she has never been.  I have to wonder if some small portion of the magic from my childhood will still be there.

Worse Things Than Death

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I made the 5.5 hour round trip today to see my father, who resides in a nursing home in the town where I once lived.  I moved him to that town after my mother died, so I could be closer to him.  He started out in an assisted living facility, but then dementia and other problems made it necessary to admit him into a nursing home.  He has been in a wheelchair for about 6-7 years.  I say he resides in this facility because basically he is just existing, day after day, until such time that he will cease to exist.  He has no quality of life; he cannot talk beyond a whisper, and it is almost impossible to understand a single word he attempts to say.  Other than dementia and legs that no longer work, he is in relatively good health for someone who is 94.  He takes no prescription medicine — only Tylenol.  Occasionally he gets agitated, which is not surprising, and the nurses give him a sedative, which seems to work.  Unfortunately, he has fallen a few times and has suffered lacerations bad enough for a trip to the ER for stitches.  Oddly enough, he hasn’t broken a single bone, and hardly complains about pain at all — ever.  He fought the staff tooth and nail (well, just nails, since he has no teeth anymore) when they removed his stitches last time, but I think that was from fear and confusion more than pain.

It is heartbreaking to see him linger in this state, and I told him today that I was sorry that he had to do so.  I wish what is left of his life could end.  I wish he could fall asleep forever.  Anyone who has lived too long, or is close to someone who has, knows all too well that there are worse things than death.  I will never wish for a long life — only a full one.

It Was a Good Day

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Having both sons now over the age of 21 makes getting together a bit more entertaining.  They so enjoy recalling foolish things I’ve said and done over the years. They laugh hilariously as they imitate my standard stock phrases and not-so-sage advice.  And it’s certainly fun being able to have a drink or two with them. This Good Friday had a little bit of all those elements in a place that holds such good family memories for them — glad we could be together on such a beautiful day.