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Where is the Pink Chair?
Writers, gather!
In October, Bloom Lingerie, a luxury resort, swim, and lingerie boutique in Cohasset, MA, hosted a writing workshop for aspiring writers and storytellers. Attendees were led in discussions about the importance of telling our stories as well as showing the consequences of leaving a woman’s story out of the archives.
“Connection is healing. Storytelling is educating. Educating is empathizing,” said PCS Chief Editor Bridget Snell. “Historically, a woman’s experience has been intentionally dismissed or eliminated from history telling. What we know, and how we know it, have been passed down to us from those whose intentions are based on the culture of the time. Civil rights, women’s suffrage, childbirth, menopause, appropriate behavior, careers—the experiences that were recorded were in the eye of the beholder and most were not women.”
Attendees were led through reading exercises, dappling in the writings of Garrison Keilor, David Sedaris, Jenny Lawson, Sidney Poitier, Trevor Noah, Ta Nehisi Coates, and Samantha Irby, as well as past Pink Chair Storytellers, including Katerina Phoenix, Ayanna Freedom, and Lorraine Orr.
The writing workshops are part of a series of Pink Chair Conversations hosted by sponsors of PCS. Keep an eye on email and our web site to attend the next South Shore-based event. Bring a pencil!
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She said, “I Will Help”
The Co-founders of PCS honored the 2024 Pink Chair Advocates during a gathering of friends, family, and colleagues at The Woodward School for Girls in October. Each of the nine Pink Chair Advocates was recognized for the unconditional advocacy they provide to marginalized groups, individuals, and families on the South Shore and in Massachusetts.
Honorees were Kenzie Blackwell of Free., Shavon Drayton and Jayd Rodrigues of Horizons for Homeless Children, Amanda Durante of The Wandering Hearts Project, Melissa Kaye of Joshua Kaye Foundation, Jaya Pandey of the Desi Moms Network, Bobbie London of South Shore Stars, and Marjean Perhot of Refugee and Immigrant Services of Catholic Charities Boston.
“These are the women I want to know, and these are the women we want you to get to know so that if something comes your way you are armed with community, support, and the knowledge that it can be done,” said Marci. “There was a time when a woman wasn’t offered a seat at the table. Her story wasn’t told. Her experiences were discounted. When you sit in the pink chair, you reauthor history.”
“This is a group of women who connected and handed over the mic,” said Bridget. “She is an advocate. She made it her mission to make you and I hear the voice that may have been put in the back of the room or may be there through circumstances unknown to us ... Each time I spoke with one of this year’s Pink Chair Advocates, they asked, ‘Why would anyone want to hear about me?’And I answer all of you with this: You heard something we did not and that’s a gift. You saw something we did not see and brought it to our attention. You heard a voice in the back and passed the mic so that their experiences were included in our collective stories. This is why we want to hear about you. We have some thanking to do.”
Readers and Storytellers can nominate women for 2025 Pink Chair Advocacy Honors by emailing bridget@pinkchairstorytellers.com.
Many magazines just have nice stories in them that give you a little glimpse into a person’s life or business. But, today, I discovered the beauty within the Pink Chair Storytellers magazine that makes this magazine different from every other one.
It’s about the women who, not all that long ago, wouldn’t even have a story to tell. It’s about bringing the underdog story to the forefront to inspire others to reach their dreams! The stories laid out leave you wanting to get dressed and get to work to chase your dreams, create change, and make the world a better place, not just flip the page!
—Heather R.
I love the Identity and Advocacy issues I received! The quality of the magazine is superb! Design, layout, topics, amazing photography! And of course, phenomenally written stories and articles! ... Thank you for being faithful and committed stewards who answered the call for what so many of us women need.
—Vivian J.
On PCS Writer’s Workshop I thought that the discussion was really incredible. I had anticipated going into the workshop that we would have a lively and interesting discussion, but it was so much more than that. We focused not only on the manner and method of storytelling, but the importance of why we as women must tell our stories and take control of our narratives. I would highly recommend any future workshops hosted by Pink Chair Storytellers and look forward to attending them myself!
—Julie H.
Being surrounded by other women who also have a story to tell and a yearning to tell it was so exciting to me. The way the workshop was led sparked good conversation and opened my eyes to the many methods I could use to tell my story. I left there feeling inspired!
—Julie F.
I had the opportunity to attend a writing/storytelling workshop ... and it was such a treat. The event had the cozy, friendly vibe of a bookclub meeting. We explored passages from texts ranging from humorous to heart-wrenching and shared our thoughts not only on how the author chose to tell their story, but how it made us, as readers, feel. My biggest take-away: there’s no right or wrong way to tell a story as long as the storyteller stays true to themselves. Can’t wait for the next workshop!
—Laura B.
CAPTURING YOUR FAMILY’S Journey: MOMENTS THAT LAST A LIFETIME
I am honored to help you create these memories. I can’t wait to meet you!
“My mission as a motherhood and family photographer is to document the beauty of your family’s journey, from the first whispers of motherhood through each new chapter of life. I strive to capture authentic moments of connection and love, creating timeless art for your home that tells your unique story. I am dedicated to preserving these fleeting memories, building a legacy of cherished moments to be for generations.”
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Copyright 2024. The Pink Chair logo is a trademarked property of The Waiting Room Media, LLC. Pink Chair Storyteller Magazine is published 3 times per year in print and online at www.pinkchairstorytellers.com. Combined digital and print advertising opportunities, as well as sponsored content opportunities, are available. Rates are available upon request by emailing marci@pinkchairstorytellers.com or by calling 617.939.6193.
One day this past August, while doing some menial task I don’t remember specifically— most likely vacuuming dog hair left by my 2 Newfoundlands—I suddenly remembered a moment from 4 decades ago. It must have been in the late half of the first decade of my life because I was in my parent’s bedroom with the deep red patterned wallpaper. The bedroom was at the top of the steep stairs in the farmhouse in East Meredith, NY. The taupe background of the wallpaper was a beautiful backdrop to the new cherry bedroom set they had purchased. It was the first new set of their marriage. So that would make me around 8 or 9 years old in this scene. It was very sunny through the window on the Southwest side of the room, so likely noon or after lunch. I was lying on top of the bedspread, so probably getting ready to nap (was I home sick from school?). My mother’s slippered footsteps climbed the linoleum-covered stairs and as she entered the room she took off her glasses and laid down next to me in one swift movement. I know that she was tired (I know this because today I am a woman 20 years older than she in this memory. She was tired). She smelled like Jean Naté bath splash, her breath a blend of sun tea and Tareyton cigarettes. Her skin was smooth and rosy and oh so soft. I will remember the air around her for the rest of my life. She laid on her side, tucked her two hands between her head and the pillow, and looked at me. Her face was so relaxed and I know the very subtle smile she made for me was as much cheek as she could lift. The two of us looked at each other (it seemed a long time in my memory). There was no conversation. She didn’t need to tell me to go to sleep. The house was quiet because my three other sisters were at school, Dad at work 12 miles away. The two of must have fallen asleep that way because I don’t remember anything beyond that very moment.
That was the memory. That was the whole scene. Seconds. Then it was gone. And now Mom is gone, too. She died on September 21, 2024. My father, two of my sisters, two of my sisters-esque, my brother-in-law, and I were holding her hands, rubbing her legs, stroking her face, and telling her how loved she was when the last bit of her air left the room. It was a beautiful passing. And it was terrifying for me. I will never see her again.
As I write this, I have not moved past her room in East Meredith or her room in the nursing home. I can’t get past the fact of her passing. “I’m giving myself some grace about the grieving process,” I’ve been saying to everyone. I say this to stop the advice on how to grieve. I say it to stop further discussion about I say it because simply nodding my head to platitudes seems dismissive to someone who is trying to offer comfort. The best way to avoid the face-to-face conversations is to sleep. I slept hard and for long periods in the first month after she was gone. Eventually, deadline approached and I needed to get out of bed.
And that’s when I couldn’t. My mind and heart hurt so much that my body gave out and I experienced an MS relapse. So, I was stuck in my own room on the South Shore, as much as I was stuck in my parent’s room in the Catskills, and stuck at the side of her bed in her room in Western Massachusetts.
It is time for me to choose one room, one bed.
Of course, I choose the room where my own daughters sleep. But not today. Today I remain warm next to Mom in the bedroom with the cherry furniture. I’ll get out of that bed when I’m done napping.
How beautiful that we are presenting you with stories of connections between mothers and daughters! The mix of joy and grief, acceptance and denial, laughter, humor, and the changing perspectives and seasons of life on these pages is exhaustive. These stories are gifts to you and me. Enjoy.
Bridget
FROM MARCI
I grew up five minutes down the road from my maternal grandparents, which was 10 minutes away from my mom’s childhood home. My Grandmother Muriel was involved in everything we did. She was there Sunday night for dinner, at every dance recital, graduation, awards ceremony, shopping spree, and lazy Saturday afternoon. She was part of the fabric of our family. About once a month, the whole family would pile into the car and drive to New Jersey to have dinner and spend time with my paternal grandparents. My paternal grandmother, Grandma Betty, was so different from my maternal grandmother. She had a thick Hungarian accent and was always moving around, cooking, serving food, and going into her magic closet, where she hid all the gifts.
I am the luckiest of the lucky to have come from this family.
As time moved forward, as it always does, I grew up, but my grandmothers aged. Without skipping a beat, my mother’s caretaking expanded; she added two more people.
This was one of the most valuable core lessons my mother taught me. We take care of each other. There is an inexplicable bond between mothers and daughters. As I write, I still cannot find the words. After reading the amazing stories in these pages of the connections between mothers and daughters, I still feel at a loss for words. The explanation given can only be found in the telling of stories about experiences and journeys. The facts of the story are what give us the ability to document these bonds. My mom led by example. She respected, honored, and cared for the women that came before her in our family. No questions asked. And from that example, I will do the same.
Marci
Contributors
Sam Correia
Tess Cruz Foley
Kim Miles
Stephanie C. Olsen
Candy O’Terry
Marie Romilus Cover
Stephanie C. Olsen
Storyteller Portraits
Stephanie C. Olsen
Editorial guidelines can be found at PinkChairStorytellers.com and submissions can be sent to bridget@pinkchairstorytellers.com. Subscribe at PinkChairStorytellers.com/ subscribe.
Nancy & Cait
Nancy: “I remember first hearing about AIDS in June of 1981, when I was working on a medical and surgical floor in a small local hospital. I was 7 months pregnant with you, my first.”
Cait: “When COVID came across the news in March of 2020, I was working as an Interventional Cardiology Nurse Practitioner at a large hospital in Boston. I was 6 months pregnant with my third child.”
100 Years of Juanita Plumb
“When I was little I dreamed of having an indoor bathroom, a picturesque little house with a picket fence around it. I didn’t know much about the world. There was no television and we didn’t have a radio.”
Jaya & Amma
“We never talked about what I’d do on my drives to work, when I used to call her. She was my friend, my confidant, my safe place. She didn’t assign anyone to fill the void when I need comforting hugs, soothing smiles, or gentle reassurance when life gets tough.”
Sue & Dot
”She didn’t have to choose my feelings over dating or scuba lessons, but she did. She didn’t even try to convince my 8 year-old-self that scuba diving wasn’t dangerous, she just knew it would be too much worry for a little girl who already lost her father.”
Alisha & Tina
“Those memories are buried in the dusty corners of my mind, like the faded photographs from the early ‘80s, their edges blurred with a sepia tint. Her voice—distinct and rich—however still clearly resonates within me.”
CONTRIBUTORS
Candy O’Terry
Kim Miles “I have to say, I feel a lot better now that I’ve come clean with my confession. It feels great to share, so thanks for listening. In the spirit of sisterhood, if you need a pal to whom you’d like to confess/chat/ complain, hit me up.” 70 68 72 74 89
“By the time you read this, I’ll be celebrating one year as a breast cancer survivor. Every step of the way, wise women have taken me under their wings. That’s because we’re connected in an endless chain of hope, support, and sisterhood.”
Marie Romilus “...my experience had taught me that expressing my feelings often got dismissed. I would open up to friends who would later on abandon me to build closer relationships with others who could relate to them better (white American culture).”
Tess Cruz Foley
‘“No, the baby died.’ I didn’t mince words because I didn’t want to leave any room for confusion. The problem with my sentence of choice is that it’s so shocking it seems like a really dark joke.”
Exploring the Mother-Daughter connection in fiction and nonfiction
Sam Correia
“We’re scared. I’m scared. And it feels near impossible to have hope for a future that might not be safe, especially for marginalized folks.”
SAM CORREIA is the Community Engagement Librarian at the Duxbury Free Library and the newest columnist for PCS. They are passionate about community care, collective liberation, and radical hope for the future. They are the creator and Project Director of the South Shore LGBTQ Oral History Archive, an intergenerational project focused on bringing together LGBTQ teens and LGBTQ elders to participate in oral history interviews, bringing to light long-excluded stories about queer history in Massachusetts communities. Sam is also a co-organizer of the Queer Collective of MA/RI.
TERESA CRUZ FOLEY is a Mexican American behavior analyst and social justice advocate and founder of Brave Space Consulting. Her desire to heal from internalized oppression and supremacy beliefs led her to research best practices DEIB from corporate, HR, education, and individual perspectives, and to create Brave Space Consulting. Tess is the author of “Mindfully Inclusive: Connecting Social Emotional Learning With Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Skill” an evidence-based curriculum.
KIM MILES is the Founder and CEO of the production company, Miles in Heels Productions. She is a highly soughtafter keynote and TEDx speaker, emcee, creative collaborator, and event strategist. Kim has more than 20 years experience producing programs for clients, including the Massachusetts Conference for Women, Babson College, the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, Wellesley College, MassChallenge, Women in Technology International, Colwen Hotels, Regis College, Bryant University Women’s Summit, MetroWest Conference for Women, and many more. She’s a proud member of the WIN Lab Coaching Circle at Babson College as well as the Innovation Women Speakers Bureau.
STEPHANIE C. OLSEN is a Certified Professional and Craftsman Photographer. Her 30-year career has spanned from family portraits and weddings to commercial clients, including Talbots and Wahlburgers. In her most recent decade, she has specialized in women’s portraits. Her women’s portrait experiences have been called “transformative,” “life changing,” and “cathartic.” Whether it’s a beauty or boudoir session, women leave the studio saying it was one of the best days of their lives. Stephanie is a South Shore native. A people person by heart. Hostess by Hobby. Stephanie currently lives in Rockland with her studio just behind her home. She enjoys her home and garden with her husband, Todd, and daughter, Natalie.
CANDY O'TERRY Known as “Boston’s Beloved Radio Voice,” Candy O is a recent inductee into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame. An awardwinning radio broadcaster, podcaster, master interviewer, and singer, her music has been played around the world. She and her daughter Colleen are the coauthors of the children’s book “Nelson’s Garden.” A 25-year veteran of Magic 106.7/WMJX, Candy is the Founder of My Dove Productions and the Candy O Radio Network. She’s the host of the weekly podcast and syndicated radio series “The Story Behind Her Success,” “The Speaker Coach” podcast, “16 Life Lessons Motivation Monday” feature, and the Nashville-based podcast series “Country Music Success Stories.”
MARIE ROMILUS, MA, CPC, is the founder of Bel Lavi Life Coaching. Her practice focuses on bringing more awareness of mental health to the Black and Brown Communities. Born in Portau-Prince, Haiti, and raised in the U.S. on Cape Cod, Marie incorporates her heritage and culture into her practice to provide the best mental health services. Marie is a regular contributor to PCS, where she reflects on topics of belonging through personal storytelling. Marie’s stories are her truth.
Tell us about the connection with your Mom, we asked. We love all your replies, like this one:
What life lessons did you learn from your mother?
The lessons my mother taught me are woven into the fabric of my life. She instilled in me the importance of family and cultural traditions, grounding me in a sense of identity and belonging. Her kindness and respect toward others taught me to see humanity in everyone and approach each person with authenticity and compassion. She encouraged me to embrace my challenges, not as obstacles but as opportunities to build my inner strength and resilience, knowing that independence and interdependence are essential parts of the journey.
My mother also showed me that love can be expressed through my natural sense of caregiving and acts of service, demonstrating a work ethic defined by perseverance and a deep commitment to loved ones. She values education and believes in the power of knowledge, teaching me that lifelong learning is both a privilege and a responsibility. Through her example, I learned to be true to who I am, to pursue my calling, and to live a life of purpose, integrity, and authenticity.
Her common phrase that I remember growing up was, “this too shall pass,” which captured the essence of life’s transience, reminding me that I will navigate through challenging times throughout my life. Her words inspire me to approach topics of loss, impermanence, and grief with an open heart, compassion, and love.
What did your mother tell you about sex?
As a teenager and young woman, my mother and I didn’t often discuss sex. But I did learn essential aspects from my mom, such as consent, safety, trust, relationships, and emotional intimacy. Now that I’m an adult, my mother and I have developed a closer relationship, allowing us to have more open conversations about all aspects of life, including sex.
When did you realize you were turning into your mother?
I realized I was turning into my mother one day while sitting in my car. As I glanced in the rearview mirror, I saw her reflection looking back at me, even though I was alone. It also struck me when I heard myself say, “This too shall pass,” a phrase my mother often used when I was younger, echoing through my own words. I also recognize my mother in myself when I host gatherings, cook wonderful meals, and immerse myself in a good book. I am proud and honored to have aspects of my mother within me.
—Johanna B.,
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The Woodward School for Girls recently hosted its highly anticipated Women of Distinction Red Carpet Gala in celebration of the school’s 130th anniversary. The sold-out event brought together alumnae, parents, and community members for an evening of glamor, celebration, and philanthropy, raising critical funds for financial aid. Kyle Wrentz from Break a Leg Theatre Works was the evening’s MC.
The highlight of the night was the recognition of three exceptional Women of Distinction who have made a lasting impact on the Woodward community and beyond. Honorees included Maddie Snow Burke, Class of 2003; Tracy Wilson, founder of Tracy Wilson Law Firm in Quincy; and Ginny Trainor, Director of Quincy Women’s Softball and New England Women’s Softball. These trailblazing women were celebrated for their leadership, achievements, and dedication to the community.
As guests arrived, they were greeted by a stunning display of classic cars, including a Ferrari, Austin Healy, two MGs, and two vintage Jaguars, setting the stage for a night of elegance. Attendees walked the red carpet into “Big Blue,” where the event unfolded with heartfelt moments and lively celebrations. Guests enjoyed a carefully curated menu catered by local favorites, including Craig’s Cafe, Rozafa Bistro, Assembly on Hancock, and
Montilio’s Bakery.
The goal of the Gala was to raise $100,000 in support of Woodward’s financial aid program, ensuring that deserving students have access to a Woodward education. After the event Woodward knew they were close to achieving their goal. The Gala’s silent auction remained open for a week following the event, and in that time, the community stepped up even further, pushing Woodward over the top to achieve the $100K goal!
“We are incredibly grateful to everyone who made this possible,” said Alex Magay, Head of School. “Together, we are making a lasting difference in the lives of our students and ensuring that the values of Woodward continue to inspire for generations to come.”
The celebration also served as a reminder of Woodward’s ongoing legacy and commitment to providing a transformative education for young women. With 130 years of excellence behind them, the school looks forward to a bright future.
Looking ahead, The Woodward School invites prospective families to join the next Admissions Open House on Saturday, December 7th, from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. To register, please email admissions@thewoodwardschool.org.
Above: Past and present Women of Distinction pictured from left to right: Marianne Peak, Dolly DiPisa, Christina Hagearty, Ginnie Trainor, Maddie Snow Burke ‘03, Tracy Wilson, Laurie Graf ‘91, and Katherine Hesse; Left: Woodward sophomore Bella E. ‘27 performing “If I Can’t Love Her” that she performed in last spring’s production of “Beauty and the Beast”; Below, pictured left to right: Head of School Alex Magay, Carrie Coughlin ‘P27, President of our Board of Directors Stephanie Perini-Hegarty ‘P18 ‘P14, WFA Co-President Sheila Poschman ‘P27, WFA Co-President Anjali Kaul ‘P29, Kathryn Hubley ‘P16, Board Member Nina Conroy ‘76, and Alumnae Relations and Annual Fund Coordinator Kaylie McDonald.
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Portraits: Stephanie C. Olsen
Hair & Maekup: Marie Derbes
Styling: Nancy (seated) and Cait are styled by Judith and Emma, a dynamic motherdaughter team. The duo are wearing outfits from Fearless Angel Boutique in Norwell. This boutique empowers women to feel fierce, confident, and empowered. All the clothing featured in the photos is available at the boutique.
Cait O’Callaghan Reen and Nancy Hynes O’Callaghan are cut from the same cotton scrubs. The mother-daughter duo sat together to talk about their connections as nurses through two of the world’s darkest pandemics, the call to become caretakers, and how sometimes it’s their patients THAT get them through the trauma.
Their reflections begin here:
Nancy: I remember first hearing about AIDS in June of 1981, when I was working on a medical and surgical floor in a small local hospital. I was 7 months pregnant with you, my first. The CDC issued something called “universal precautions” to all health care workers which meant we had to gown up, glove up, mask up and wear goggles. It was so impersonal and that really bothered me. I was instantly so detached from my patients. It allowed no room for the patient-nurse connection that was always a favorite part of my job. I couldn’t even hold someone’s hand. It changed the meaning of care and connection.
Cait: When COVID came across the news in March of 2020, I was working as an Interventional Cardiology Nurse Practitioner at a large hospital in Boston. I was 6 months pregnant with my third child. I had never experienced something like this in my career—I was so scared, but so intrigued. My OB called and said, “You need to stay home until I call you back.”
So, literally overnight I went from a daily patientfacing interactive position, to being stuck at home talking to patients on the phone, or if they could get it to work, their computers. Talk about impersonal. It was awful. I felt so helpless as a clinician, a mom, a daughter, in so many ways. Many of us were stripped of the titles we defined ourselves by overnight, handcuffed by fear of the unknown.
Nancy: HIV/AIDS patients were placed into a private room. Always in isolation. And usually down the end of the hallway. No visitors were allowed unless they were wearing gowns, masks, gloves, etc. I remember that the housekeeping teams were so reluctant to enter and these patients were served their food on cardboard trays that they then had to dispose of in the rooms. I remember rounding with the Teams and for all the other patients we would go to the patient bedside and involve them in our discussions. That didn’t happen with this population. We stayed outside of their rooms and talked about them. Like they weren’t real people. It was awful.
Cait: Working as part of a procedural-based Team, we didn’t really have the option to just “stop caring for our patients.” They needed new heart valves and they needed them right then. When the rules changed everyday it made it so hard to streamline care. It made it impossible to reassure these sick, symptomatic patients that they were going to be okay, when we “the team” weren’t really sure how to proceed.
I would call patients to check in on them and gather updates on their cardiac symptoms, but I would end up staying on the phone for hours. They were completely isolated from their families and loved ones. Most of the time they just wanted someone to talk to.
I feel like the core of what it means to be a nurse is still very much the same from when I was in practice compared to today. Deciding to become a nurse is an absolute calling. It’s impossible to do this job and not absolutely love doing it. You can’t see what we see, hear what we hear, do what we do, and not know deep in your bones that you were meant to do it.
I became a nurse because my Mom was a nurse. She was an Ensign in the Navy as a nurse. She had a perfectly starched white uniform that crinkled when it moved, white nylons, and white leather clogs called Clinics. My favorite part was her nurse’s cap. It was always somehow perfectly squared on her head. On cold days, she wore her Navy cape to and from work. Sometimes I would sneak and wear her cape around the house and it made me feel invincible. She worked at a local hospital in our neighborhood. She would leave crisp and clean and walk over the hill in our backyard to work. Then she would come home still crisp and clean back over the hill home to us. She was like this perfect nurse mirage.
She never pushed me to be a nurse. My three best friends in high school decided to go into nursing, so I said, “Why not? I’ll try it.” Mom was the best tutor when my courses were tricky or there were concepts I didn’t understand.
When I graduated, I got to wear a crisp white uniform, white nylons and new Clinics. My Mom put my new nurse’s cap on my head, and I felt like I did when I was little, in her cape. Invincible.
I got to work in the same hospital that my Mom worked in for a bit. When some of the staff, doctors, and nurses would see my last name they would always ask, “are you Phyllis’ daughter? I was always so damn proud to say Yes.
My Mom put my new nurse’s cap on my head, and I felt like I did when I was little, in her cape. INVINCIBLE.
I wanted to be a dentist. I started off pre-Med, but then my college roommate was in the Nursing Program and I used to read her textbooks when she wasn’t there. Nursing seemed to check some of the same boxes, so I switched majors.
Once I switched majors, having you and Grammy as nurses became a major influence on my choice, and man did it become so incredibly meaningful to me along the way. I quickly realized that nursing was a mere extension of who I already was. Likely because it was who you two are. When you placed my nursing pin on my new white uniform at graduation along with yours and grandma’s, it was an absolute honor of a lifetime.
You raised me in a house where people truly cared about one another. Our whole family, on both yours and Dad’s sides, are incredibly close and so when I chose a career that allowed me to simply ‘care’ for other people, it felt almost easy. I have always been a glutton for knowledge, so the tough courses and grueling clinical rotations filled my cup.
I always went to you when I couldn’t figure out clinical scenarios. You would break it down for me in a way that only another nurse could, and I learned things through your lens of experience and compassion that truly made me the caretaker I am today.
I think nursing has grit and it has soul. I don’t think there is any difference between a nurse in the 1940s, the 1980s, or the 2020s. We are stubborn. We are smart. We are perfectionists. We have a sense of humor that most of the time only other nurses understand. But we chose this profession because at our core we love human connection. It’s as simple as that. So when you take away our ability to hold someone’s hand, like in the AIDS or COVID pandemics, you take away our most impressive skill: blind compassion.
In some ways you not only taught me to be a nurse, but also a mother. Huh, I never really told you that until now.
We chose this profession because at our core we love human connection. So when you take away our ability to hold someone’s hand, like in the AIDS or COVID pandemics, you take away our most impressive skill: blind compassion.
Nancy: I have many stories in my 40 years of nursing but one sticks out in my mind. I was a brand new nursing grad working on a medical floor, a week on the job. I was assigned to a patient I will call Harry. Harry was very, very frail and did not have long to live. One morning as I was about to give Harry his bed bath, he mumbled to me that he wanted to go into the shower instead of a sponge bath. After much discussion with Harry about how I didn’t think this was a good idea, Harry won the discussion. I needed assistance from another nurse to get Harry into the shower chair, and then I pushed Harry down the hall into the shower room. We didn’t have showers in the patients rooms in those days. After a few minutes in the shower, I could see how relaxed he felt with the warm water flowing over his body. Then Harry stopped breathing and passed away in the shower. I had no idea what to do, being so new in this job, so I kicked open the shower room door and screamed for help. Harry was a DNR and even though I knew this, I panicked and called for help. After we got Harry back into his bed and the family was called I sat in the back of the nursing station crying and doubted that I would ever come back to work the next day. When the family arrived and they were told how Harry had passed away, my charge nurse told me the family wanted to talk to the nurse who put him in the shower. Now I was positive I would never return the next day. My career was clearly in jeopardy and I knew I made the wrong professional choice. One of Harry’s sons approached me and hugged me and continued to hug me all the while crying about the loss of his dad. He thanked me for giving his dad his last wish and explained to me that wherever Harry was going, he was going clean, and that was always so important to him. At that moment, I validated my career choice. It’s never about me, it’s always about the patient’s wishes.
Cait: I remember talking with one patient around dinner time. He was elderly, lived alone, and usually his kids brought him dinner every night. But they stopped coming over because they had little kids and were so scared to pass anything between any of them. I vividly remember making dinner for my little family, [daughter] Saibh was 4 and [son] Eamonn was 2 at the time, and my patient asked me to stay on the phone while we had dinner so he could share his dinner with us, which was cereal. I burst into tears and ended up FaceTime-ing him and propping up my phone on our kitchen counter so we could all eat together. He made the kids laugh and told me stories of when his children were little and how they would hide their green beans in their baked potato skins so they didn’t have to eat them. It absolutely killed me to hang up with him that night. Being a caretaker/ clinician during those first few months of COVID was gutwrenching. Add in that I was 6 months pregnant and it was torture.
I’ve worked with many age groups in my nursing career. My favorite is the elderly population. Man, they are so full of wisdom and incredible stories. My husband will always say, “Oh boy, we’re going to lose her for a bit” if I see an elderly person alone somewhere — I am drawn to go sit with them and just listen. I’ve had patients confess love, hate, passion, wishes, unanswered wishes, racy secrets, guilts, dreams, and so many intimate pieces of themselves over the years. I’ve become this receptacle full of so many people’s experiences it has taught me so many incredible life lessons along the way. It is likely why I am the way I am as a person. I am always searching for fulfilling experiences, things that ring my bell, places that take my breath away, people who intrigue me. My patients have taught me that. Time is a thief and if you ask anyone who knows me they’ll tell you I do not waste it.
When you ask about a day or a patient who challenged me to both question and validate my career choice, that is simple: It’s my Dad. Out of the clear blue, my Dad was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma with metastases to his brain and lungs. The prognosis was terrifying. I will never forget seeing the CT scan of his brain before the team walked into the room to tell us. I knew before they said the words. I asked to tell him before they did. I held his big hand, stared into his twinkling blue eyes, and told him. In that instant I hated that I had all this knowledge and understanding about disease processes in my brain, and intrinsically knew what that meant for my Dad. I hated being a clinician in that moment. I just wanted to be a daughter and hold his hand and wish and pray and hope alongside him. But I couldn’t. Mom and I couldn’t. We were his wife and daughter and we were his nurses. As he got weaker, we got stronger. And it was in those moments that I felt solidified in my career choice. Yes, it was brutal to know what was going to happen to him; ahhhh, but it was also a secret weapon having that knowledge and using it to prepare us all for everything that was to come. If you ask me, this was why you were supposed to be a nurse. You were meant to be a nurse and marry Dad because this was in his stars and he wouldn’t have survived it without you. Talk about a calling. This was the reason you followed your best friends and the reason I read my roommate’s textbooks. I am fully and whole-heartedly convinced of that.
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I think something that we all struggle with in this day and age is balance. Whether it be work and life, kids and spouse, exercise and relaxation, it has all just been blended together in our culture of speed. As Mom said, you can’t really ever not be a nurse. It’s a reflex.
As lucky as mom is, I too have a husband and family who are incredibly supportive. There are days when I walk through the door after losing a patient and Frankie can just see it on my face. He has the best way of slowing me down. Likely, the only way that works actually. He’s a big fella, and he has this rapture of a hug. It is all encompassing. It’s like wiping off a whiteboard and feeling like it’s okay to start anew.
The balance of my career is fascinating. In a single week, I could lose a long-term patient, yet help provide a life-altering procedure to another, giving them 10 more years to live. At times it is emotionally exhausting, but somehow that dichotomy provides a peacefulness. A meaningful existence and so much more than a career or a job. I have never “worked” a day in my life.
If you ask me, this was why you were supposed to be a nurse. You were meant to be a nurse and marry Dad because this was in his stars and he wouldn’t have survived it without you.
I was very fortunate during my nursing career to have a very supportive husband who was a police officer and dealt with difficult situations in his own job. We were able to share stories on bad days and laugh on the good days. You and your brother kept us very busy with after school activities so I didn’t really have a lot of time to dwell on the bad days or the trauma at work. I chose this career for the good and bad days. You just deal with it and get up and face each new patient and each new day. We were very lucky to have owned a small summer cottage on an island on a lake in Maine. We would spend all the summer months up at the lake. We were able to water ski, boat, and kayak and had so many wonderful friends around us. It was always called my “Happy Place.” When the summer would come to an end and we were all ready to head back to school and my job, I was refreshed and eager to get back to caring for those who needed me. Being a nurse doesn’t stop when your shift is over. It is a 24/7 commitment of caring and helping others.
We were able to share stories on bad days and laugh on the good days. You and your brother kept us very busy with after school activities so I didn’t really have a lot of time to dwell on the bad days or the trauma at work.
There are more than 100,000 Americans who have surpassed this impressive milestone. But it’s something to be celebrated, especially when that special centenarian is your mother. I’m unabashedly biased about my mom. From the outside, she might have seemed fairly ordinary. She didn’t cure cancer. She didn’t run a 4-minute mile or have her own podcast. But my mom has had an extraordinary life. Epitomizing the American Dream, she went from a farm in rural Kansas during the Great Depression to exploring Peru, Australia, and China, to retiring in her dream house on a lake. She’s had many roles over the years: DAUGHTER, SISTER, TEACHER, SOCIAL WORKER, FRIEND, MOTHER, AUNT, ENTERTAINER, HOUSEWIFE, REAL ESTATE AGENT, COOK, CARD SHARK, SPEED READER, PASSIONATE U-M FAN, GRANDMOTHER, CAREGIVER. AND HALF OF A REMARKABLY ENDURING COUPLE. She and my dad met in high school, they married on the sly during World War II, and celebrated 76 years in 2021. He passed away the following year. Except for a traumatic period at the onset of COVID when they were separated less than a mile apart, they spent nearly every day together for eight decades. She keeps a picture of him beside her bed and tells him about her day each night before going to sleep. They survived and thrived through various challenges, raised four children, spoiled four grandchildren, made countless friends, and created a wonderful world of experiences and memories. JUANITA RUTH WAS BORN JANUARY 12, 1925, to Frank and Alma (Evans) Vice. She lived on the family farm in Center Ridge, Kansas, and met Charles “Dick” Plumb in high school. They earned their degrees at U-M then moved to to Bad Axe in Michigan’s thumb where Dick was a reporter on a small-town paper. They set roots down in metropolitan Detroit where he found his true calling in public relations. Juanita became the quintessential “woman-behind-the-man,” helping entertain reporters and business associates, running the household with four kids, being an active leader in a small community church, serving as president of the local U-M club, and maintaining a very active social life. Mom now resides in Seneca, South Carolina just 20 minutes from her children Chris, Rick and Kim, while I’m the last man (or at least the last Plumb) standing in Michigan. On the eve of her 100th birthday and when she became a great-grandmother, Juanita reminisces about her life and aspirations, sharing insights, advice, and love along the way. The following are excerpts from conversations with my mom, who remains extremely sharp, inquisitive and, when it comes to cards, very competitive. WHILE THE SURROUNDING WORLD HAS CHANGED DRAMATICALLY OVER THE COURSE OF HER LIFE, INCLUDING THE ROLES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN, she has remained a constant presence and positive influence on us all. – compiled by her son Steve Plumb.
Did you ever think you’d live to be 100 years old?
Juanita: No, I never thought I’d be 100, but I did think I’d live into my 90s. My dad and his sister Effie both lived to 96, and Grandmother Vice was in her 90s. But on the other side of the family, Grandma Evans died very young, my mother died at 67 and my sister at 80.
You just had a check-up with your doctor. What’s the prognosis?
The doctor told me I’m in very good shape, and not just for a 99-year-old woman. I never used to go to the doctor much as a child or when I was a young married woman. If I got a cold, my grandmother would roll up a newspaper and blow sulfa down my throat. That was one of her remedies—and we used a lot of Vick’s VapoRub. But I was never very sick. I guess I had all the childhood diseases: German measles, three-day red measles (rubeola) and chicken pox. But we never went to the doctor for those things. When I had the whooping cough, my mother stayed up all night and held my baby sister (Monnie), because she was afraid she’d choke to death.
What are some of your other early memories?
My most vivid ones, when I was about six or seven, are of the droughts, dust storms and an overwhelming feeling that nature was taking over the farm. I remember my mother crying. She’d work so hard to clean the house and close all the windows, then the next day there would be about an inch of dust on the windowsills. My dad had to fasten a rope from the house to the barn, so he could feel his way to the barn to feed the animals. With all the dust, it was so dark during the day that we weren’t even allowed outside during a storm, and we had to wear makeshift masks inside the house so we didn’t breathe it in. Then there were the famous Kansas tornadoes, too. I
he wanted to put it up as security to buy seed and plant his crops, but the bank wouldn’t allow it.
Despite all the hardships, did you have a happy childhood?
Yes, I had a very, very fortunate childhood. Woodson County, where we lived, was known as the “Prairie Hay Capital of the World.” During World War I, all the hay was shipped to Germany to feed the horses in the U.S. cavalry. That’s when my dad and mother met. She was the local postmaster in Rose and worked in a general store where he went to sell his hay and ship it overseas.
We lived on a 140-acre farm. Our house had three bedrooms—two upstairs—a kitchen and living room, as well as a big barn, a three-hole outhouse and a root cellar. There was no running water or electricity. We didn’t even have gas lights, just kerosene ones and candles. The big kerosene lamp was our main light at night; it had to be refilled every day. I saw a snake in the cellar, so I was afraid to go down there during tornadoes. We didn’t have a fireplace, but we had a wood stove that we kept lit to keep us warm during the winter.
Our neighbors lived about a half-mile away on either side. My grandfather Vice had owned all the surrounding land, then divided it up among my dad and his brothers and sisters. So all my cousins lived nearby. All the Vice girls married into the Knapp family, it was very tightknit. Aunt Ruth died during the Spanish Flu when she was about 21, and already had two little kids who had to go live with other relatives.
I was a very unusual farm girl: I’ve never milked a cow or rode a horse, except for ponies. My dad didn’t want me out in the barnyard because of the horses. They were so friendly with him, they’d walk around with their heads on his shoulder. But he was afraid they’d
What were your dreams of the future at the time?
Well, when I was little I dreamed of having an indoor bathroom, a picturesque little house with a picket fence around it. I didn’t know much about the world. There was no television and we didn’t have a radio. Your dad gave me a portable radio with batteries for one of my birthdays. It was the first one that my family owned. Both your dad and I also wanted to travel. His parents had gone to Mexico and told us all about it.
remember watching pieces of our barn fly by while we were huddled in a little crawl space. It flew all over the place; first the roof, then the whole barn collapsed. I was afraid of the tornadoes because I saw the destruction they caused. The dust storms didn’t frighten me, they were just messy.
During the Depression, Granddad Evans lost his store and went bankrupt. My dad refused to go on WPA (Works Progress Administration) assistance, and he never mortgaged the farm. He was very unhappy because
accidentally walk over me. The main thing I did on the farm was feed the chickens and gather eggs at night—I wore gloves to get the hens off their nests—and I’d help weed and pump water for the garden.
What did you do for fun?
I had a playhouse and my dolls. We had loads of barn cats, as many as 21 at one time, that I’d play with and even dress up. And I’d make mud pies and jump rope that mother would tie to a post and hold the other end.
I also loved going to my Aunt Jessie’s because they had a tricycle that I could ride on a sidewalk. That was fun. Cousin Dale was six months older than me and Max was my sister Monnie’s age, so I always had cousins to play with at Christmastime, but nobody close by on the farm. I had to walk two miles to school. I started when I was five so I could walk with my two cousins, Leona and Golda, who were in the eighth grade at the time. It was a one-room classroom with about 25 kids. In the winter, Dad would hitch a team of horses up to a sled, pick up the neighbor kids, and take us all to school. Then he’d get the hay and take it to the pasture to feed the animals.
We went to Grandma Evans house nearly every weekend. We played pitch (a Kansas card game), then we’d spend the night and sleep on her feather beds. Grandma Evans was the big loving type who always wanted to feed everyone. On the 4th of July, we always went to Buffalo Creek—but I didn’t learn to swim until college. We also made homemade ice cream at Aunt Jessie’s house.
Were you an adventurous kid?
Not really, I was more of a fraidy cat. But I learned to drive a Model T, which used a manual transmission with a clutch and had to be hand-cranked to start, when I was about 12 to help my dad. He would bring in a big load of hay that needed to be stored in the barn. My mother would hook up the bales and I would drive the car to pull up the hay to my dad where he would stack them in the loft. I got my driver’s license in Yates Center with a highway patrolman when I was 13.
What do you remember about your mom?
She had a good sense of humor and liked to read. I loved her very much and admired the way that she went out and did things to help Dad. They were very happy, but she was probably more ambitious than he was. She had a career outside of farm life and worked whenever possible. She was a postmaster before they were married, then again later on and worked at the grocery store that she and Dad managed. None of the other women did that.
She also went to school and earned her teacher’s certificate before World War I. So did your grandmother Plumb. They both were teachers and rode horses to school. My mother was on the school board and was instrumental in having the Yates Center Library bring books out to our rural school. It was like an early bookmobile. She also organized and directed plays for the PTA. Sometimes my dad would act in them. He liked playing funny tricks on the other actors, like tying a string to a sandwich they were supposed to be eating,
then pulling it away from them. Stupid stuff like that. He was always playing jokes. Although my dad didn’t go to high school, I think he was pretty smart. He sold the farm on a land contract that he figured out himself.
How old were you when you learned to read?
I could read when I was about five years old. I remember reading “The Call of the Wild” by Jack London. My love of reading came from my mother, who made popcorn and read books to us at night. My Granddad Evans took the Kansas City Star and the (Kansas City) Times newspapers. They published continuing serial stories, so my grandmother would roll them up and save them for me to read.
Were you nervous about moving to Yates Center to attend high school as a boarding student?
I guess I was, but I wanted to get off the farm. I was 14 at the time. At first, I moved in with Ms. Davidson, who was a teacher. We drove to school together and she picked me up at night. I worked for my room and board by cooking, cleaning, and checking school papers at night. Another year, I lived with a doctor and his family who my mother and dad knew. They’d take him fresh eggs and chickens as payment. I’d go home on the weekends. It was good to see my family, but it was also sort of dull on the farm—I would have rather stayed in town and done things with the kids there.
Our high school class was the biggest ever, we had 40 boys and 40 girls. At first, coming from a one-room rural school, I didn’t want to speak up in class because I was afraid that I’d make a mistake. I was well-prepared in English, but not at all for math. I took orchestra, played the piano and learned to play the violin, but I wasn’t particularly good. I wasn’t very social because I didn’t have a car, but my cousin did, so I would ride around with him. There were a lot of other farm kids that came into town for school, so we all sort of knew each other, but a lot of them had cars and drove back and forth each day. The boarders who had bicycles would get together after school and hang out. We’d mostly talk about boys and who we’d like to date. When I was a freshman, I was seeing a boy who had a bike.
How did you meet Dad?
I already knew him from school and he worked behind the counter at his dad’s store, Plumb Variety. I went there for basic supplies. Dad said he could always tell when girls came in for Kotex because they’d avoid him and ask for the female clerk. Then we started working on the high school paper together and wrote a column called “Here and There by a Pair.” I was the editor one year, and he was the editor the next year. We starred as romantic leads opposite each other in the junior play
(“A Lady to See You”). After our first date I told Ms. Davidson that I was probably going to marry him.
That must have been some first date. Yep, he was taken even before he knew it. Then he gave me 17 kisses on my 17th birthday.
How did the war affect your lives?
It changed everything. We knew something was coming, even before Pearl Harbor, from the movie newsreels. I remember very clearly what I was doing on Pearl Harbor Day. I had gone with a schoolteacher to see
and worked at a soda fountain. At the soda fountain, I met the quarterback of the football team and dated him for a bit.
Ah, so you weren’t exclusive to Dad?
No. He was unhappy that I was dating, but he dated somebody, too, while he was at the University of Kansas. At least that’s what he said, but I’m not sure that he did. I wanted to play the field a little and see whether I really wanted him. Then he proposed to me during a fraternity party, where he pinned me. I would take the milk train back and forth to KU to see him.
When did you decide that you wanted to go to college?
I think when I heard your father talking all about it. I got all the brochures. It sounded very glamorous, but I didn’t think I could afford it. I read about all the things that you would need to do in college and the clothes that you needed. Not too many of our high school class went to college, hardly any of the country kids did. My mother was very enthused. If my dad had his way, I would have married the boy next door and I probably would never have even gone to high school. I worked during the summer in a restaurant in Chanute. That’s where I bought my first new coat. Up until then, I wore hand-medowns that had gone through multiple alterations and had to be sewn back together.
her brother in Kansas City for the weekend. It was one of the first times I’d been that far from home. He had had an operation and we heard the news over the radio while we were at the hospital. As soon as I got home, I called Dick and we talked about the possibility of him going into service. He enlisted shortly after he started college at the University of Kansas, which allowed him the opportunity to go to Officer’s Training School in Michigan.
All the high school boys eventually went to war. My cousin was in the Marines in Iwo Jima. We were so worried about him. He was just a country boy who got shipped overseas. He came back a changed person, becoming very disillusioned and a heavy drinker. He told me, if he had to go back to war that he’d kill himself.
Most of the girls worked in the airplane factory in Wichita. I went to school at Emporia State University. Later, in Michigan, I tried to enlist in the Marines (which began accepting women reservists in 1942 for noncombat positions). After sizing me up—I weighed all of 95 pounds—they must have decided I was too pale and anemic, so they turned me down.
Did you always want to be a teacher?
Well, there weren’t many options, especially for women, at the time. Times have changed a lot ... I went to Emporia because I could afford it. Another girl and I boarded with a family there. To earn money, I babysat
How did your perspective on life and the world change during this time?
I knew I didn’t want to live on a farm and that I wanted to have a college education and be with other college students. But everyone was concerned about the war. My dad was afraid I’d get pregnant and Dick would be killed overseas, leaving me a single mother. He was very pessimistic. But our parents got along very well. They played cards together nearly every week. The two dads didn’t have much in common, but our mothers did. They had both been to college and became teachers.
What did you think about Dad’s mom when you first started dating?
I was scared to death of her. She was very sophisticated, so I was very much afraid of doing the wrong thing. Their life in Yates Center was very different from mine on the farm. Dad Plumb was prominent in the community—he was a pharmacist, a probate judge and owned the store—and Mother Plumb was very active in the church and other organizations. They hired people to do the laundry and help with the cleaning. She worked in the morning, had a big dinner at noon, then took a shower, got dressed up and went out calling with white gloves on in the afternoon. She became a role model for me. She was a good cook, especially her apple pie and other desserts, which is where Dick got his sweet tooth. She taught me the piano, but I was a hopeless singer. I
was impressed by their home and ashamed when they’d come out to the farm and had to use the outdoor toilet. Mother Plumb wasn’t the outdoor toilet type.
What was it like to get married during the war? We hitchhiked from Ann Arbor to Chicago. We had to wait until Dick was 21 to get a marriage license. My parents couldn’t come, but the Plumbs did. Our best man, Jim Redding, was in V-12 with Dick. We were married on a Monday at St. James Cathedral in Chicago. It was pouring rain. I wasn’t able to buy a wedding dress, and mother couldn’t even buy materials to make one because they were rationed to make parachutes for the war. Dad Plumb walked me down the aisle, although it seemed like more of a trot. We couldn’t tell anyone else or Dick would get kicked out of officer’s training. I still went by my maiden name and had to move because one of the instructors lived down the street from my apartment. We said that I was Dick’s aunt when he came to visit. It was very confusing for the landlady. After he was commissioned, we were able to make our marriage public and live together. But from the University’s standpoint, my residence was tied to my husband’s. This meant that I would have had to pay out-of-state tuition, which I couldn’t afford, so I had to drop out of school. We appeared before the board of trustees to petition them, but they turned us down.
What was your life like after you were married and Dad was no longer in the Navy. After Dick got out of the military, he went to school on the GI Bill and went on to get his master’s degree. It seemed like he was in school forever, so I had to work to support us. We were living on $27 per month. He was painting houses and working during the summer. I taught in a rural school—so I was back to being in a one-room school with about 30 kids—and worked at Montgomery Ward.
It was a big change moving from Emporia and a school of 1,200 students to more than 10,000 at U-M, and Ann Arbor was a much larger town. I was studying journalism. Dad hoped to buy a newspaper and I was going to help out, but I would have rather studied education. We didn’t own a car, so we walked, took the bus, or hitchhiked a lot. Everyone picked you up, especially when they saw it was a serviceman. We even hitchhiked to our honeymoon in Niagara Falls a few months after we were married.
In 1948, Father Lewis from our church introduced us to Granny (Ida) Wheat (a wealthy Ann Arbor resident), who was ill. I managed the household for her and we got free room and board. After she died, Father Lewis arranged for us to live in the country at the summer residence of a local dentist, and we helped take care
Raised by a strong and loving mother, Juanita Plumb has passed that strength to generations of women in our family. Her daughters Chris and Kim have had extremely successful careers and marriages: Chris was a senior executive at Ford Motor Co. and celebrated 47 years with her husband Mark Torres in 2024; Kim, a senior national bank examiner for the Comptroller of the Currency, has been married to Bob Cahill for 41 years. Kim’s daughter Danielle, a pediatric nurse, married David Mead in 2020 and celebrated the arrival of their son Wyatt in November (Juanita’s first great-grandchild!) Chris’ daughter Laura manages a successful New York-based bar/restaurant and is engaged to her longtime boyfriend Brett.
How would you describe Mom/Grandma?
Kim: I think of her as a true lady and always very well put together with her hair done, always wore lipstick and dressed well. She set a very good example, and I always strive to be like her. As kids she was very patient and loving, along with that school-teacher mentality that continued throughout life. She didn’t overstep in being a mother or try to control us. She let us make our own mistakes, but I always felt that there was that safety net there if I ever needed her.
Danielle: She’s a very vibrant and vivacious woman—she definitely doesn’t act her age. I think she is very young at heart, while having the wisdom of a nearly 100-year-old woman. She still lives her life to the fullest and best of her capabilities; I don’t think her age has necessarily slowed her down.
Chris: She always made sure everyone was taken care of, including raising four children, supporting a demanding husband and helping care for Laura when I first returned to work after maternity leave. Having grown up on a small farm in Kansas without running water or electricity, she had to be very goal oriented and driven to transform into a globe-travelling sophisticate.
of the farm. We didn’t have hot water there, so I’d go to my friend Sylvia’s house and we’d shampoo each other’s hair and have “beauty night.” We later rented an apartment for $37 per month, which had a three-way bathroom that we shared with the woman next door and a man on the other side.
Journalism typically doesn’t pay too much. Well, we were frugal and saved money every month. But I think we did fairly well. In the early days, we usually spent our vacations back in Kansas. We were just happy to be together. I said I’d go anywhere with him as long as it wasn’t cold … then we moved to Bad Axe and ended up living in Michigan until we finally retired to South Carolina and Atlanta.
Do you think you and Dad were perfectly matched?
Probably not. He was much more outgoing than I was. He liked sports and golf, and was very disappointed in my golfing, especially when I told him I’d rather stay home and work in my garden. My favorite part of golf was lunch.
So what attracted you to him, and why do you think your marriage endured for so long?
He was my best friend and we loved each other very much. He was a good conversationalist and was very willing to talk things through and make plans. Communication was never a problem, and we both loved to read and were interested in the news and learning new things. I consider myself very fortunate. We came from the same town, and knew the same people, we knew each other’s background—I guess we were well matched, just not perfectly.
What are some of your favorite memories over the course of your life?
When you kids were born. Because we had tried to have children for such a long time, and we’d sort of given up on it.
Did you want a big family?
Dad was an only child and I just had one sister, so we wanted to have a bigger family. He always wanted to have five children just like in the radio show “One Man’s Family” (a radio serial that aired from 19321959). We ended up with four, plus I had a miscarriage and a stillborn baby. I went into a sort of depression after that for a while, but then I got pregnant with Rick, then Kim, and you with three years between each. It was pretty chaotic. Dad was working nights at the paper, so I’d leave Rick in bed with him when he got home, while I went to work in the morning.
Kim:: I can’t imagine myself in her situation or my kids leaving home to go to school when they were teenagers, working for room and board. It showed her determination and personality, how much she wanted to improve herself. She had to grow up much faster than we did; we were able to just be kids when we were young.
Which of her characteristics do you see in us?
Chris: Mom was very good at budgeting and money management, traits we kids inherited. We all have a deep sense of commitment and making things work; we’re independent and hardworking, and we all have a strong interest in traveling that we get from Mom and Dad. I get a lot of my drive and organizational ability from her, but it takes a different form. She was more driven to make her husband a success, I was more driven to make myself a success.
Danielle: I like that everyone is very witty and has their wits about them, which definitely comes from Grandma. As the family matriarch, she really values community and interpersonal relationships, which I think has trickled down to everyone. Grandma has really worked to keep the family together.
Kim:We all like to win at cards. We have that competitive nature, but we don’t boast about it or have to be the center of attention. There’s also that frugalness that she and Dad had from growing up in the Depression that carried over to us.
What are some of the things that you admire about her?
Danielle: She’s very strong-willed and persistent. And I really like that she makes an effort to stay sharp and keep up with the news. Every time I call her, she always knows what’s happening in the world, probably more so than I do. She takes the time to keep her mind fresh and challenge herself. She’s still active and wants to maintain friendships and relationships with people.
Kim: She always wanted to help others and be involved with the community. It surprised me sometimes, seeing her in these roles outside of being our mom. I remember her hosting a U-M Alumnae meeting at our house when she was the president of the local club, and watching her run that meeting and taking charge of it. Then when she decided to get her real estate license when I was in high school; she didn’t have to go back to work, but she wanted to do something more.
Chris: I do admire her, she really did well for herself. This was especially evident recently when I was talking with friends about our parents at a book club meeting based on a book we had just finished. Many of them said they were the first ones in their family to go to college. Not only did Mom go to college, so did her mother.
Chris, you’re the only one of us who was old enough to remember Grandma Vice before she died just after I was born. What was she like?
Chris: She was very loving; I can see a lot of her in Mom. She seemed very supportive, but methodical—just like Mom. Grandma Vice was a postmistress, which certainly was not a woman’s job in the
What
advice would you give other people to live a happy, productive, and fulfilling life? I don’t drink or smoke. I tried a cigarette once but didn’t like it, then my college roommate set her bed on fire, so that further deterred me. Beer is absolutely horrible to me. A glass of milk is much better. Friendships are critical. Young people get on the Internet and don’t talk to each other. My friend Joan Brown and I could solve all of our problems over a morning cup of coffee; we were each other’s psychiatrist.
Between teaching jobs, you were a social worker. I took a job as a social worker for the Bureau of Social Aid with a caseload of 70 to 300 people. I was working with unwed mothers and dependent children, the disabled, and older men. It was difficult interviewing the families and seeing their living conditions and predicaments, which in some cases involved rape and incest. They were afraid of saying something wrong and losing their benefits or that we’d have to step in and go to court to help them. I worked with them to make a budget, while I was making $50 a week.
When did you stop working?
I worked right up until Chris was born. They didn’t give any time off for being pregnant, so I had to quit my job. Then I went back to teaching later in the ‘50s at Grosse Pointe University School, where the Ford family and other prominent Detroiters went to school. One of the other teachers was Jean Harris, who years later killed her lover, Dr. (Herman) Tarnower, the author of the “Scarsdale Diet.” When we finally achieved our goal of dad making $10,000 a year in the early 1960s, I was able to stay home full time to take care of you kids.
We moved to a larger house after I was born and then Dad got a job in public relations. Was that a big step up for the family?
We bought that house for $33,000. It was a nice 2,800-square-foot colonial with 4 bedrooms and 2.5 baths. But I always liked our little house in St. Clair Shores. It was the first one we ever owned, which we got on the G.I. Bill for $14,500 with zero down. The mortgage was $76 a month and we worried whether we could afford it. My dad always warned me to never take out a mortgage. But it was very well built. I could put the kids to bed, open a window and go next door and have a cup of coffee with my neighbor. I could hear you better there than I could from other rooms in our house.
Were you happy staying home with us kids and managing the house?
Yes, I think so. I thought it was a great life. We had a lot of interesting friends, many of the husbands were writers—who were very opinionated, with a range of viewpoints. We made good friends wherever we lived,
and remained close over the years. We took dance lessons, were in several bridge groups, joined a golf club, and I was involved with the church and was the local leader of the U-M Women’s alumnae association, which awarded scholarships to high school students. As part of Dad’s job, we also entertained a lot and went on business trips and sporting events, including two Olympics and several college football bowl games— unfortunately, Michigan didn’t seem to win too many.
You’ve traveled the world and all 50 states. What were some of your favorite trips?
Dad was great to travel with—we both wanted to see everything and learn about the local people and sights. I never thought I’d get past Kansas City, and that was very exciting at the time. One of my favorites was Machu Picchu in Peru. It was such an old civilization and so different than anything I’d seen before. China also was fascinating. I bought a beautiful rug that we had to ship back home. I still have it in my room. We also loved to take vacations in the U.S. We drove almost everywhere, except Alaska and Hawaii. Then there were all the family vacations with the grandkids to Myrtle Beach and Daytona. It was nice to be with everyone during the holidays, we have so many wonderful memories.
You’ve experienced a lot of death in your life. How do you cope with it?
Over my life I’ve lost hundreds of friends, neighbors and family members. And our family has dealt with a lot of cancer. My grandfather Vice got cancer of the mouth when I was a child. He had to wear a face mask and drink through a straw. It was a slow, painful death. Then my grandmother Evans died when I was in high school. She had a cerebral hemorrhage and collapsed in the garden while picking peas. She never regained consciousness and died on the operating table. And my mother was diagnosed a few months after you were born, so we flew down to Kansas and stayed with her until she died. I’ve lost practically all my friends; I’ve outlived just about everyone.
Has it been hard the last two years without Dad? It’s been very difficult, and it was even worse watching him deteriorate during COVID. At the end, he could
barely hear or see and didn’t enjoy eating nearly as much. He wasn’t enjoying life anymore, so I was thankful when he passed. I keep a big picture of him on the nightstand and talk to him all the time. I tell him about the family, the news of the world, the football scores, and what I did during the day. It’s comforting.
Do you have any advice after losing a loved one? I read a book the church gave me on grieving that said to try to maintain a daily routine as best you can and to talk to them—it helps make it seem like they’re still there with you. Praying also has helped me.
What’s been the most difficult part of aging? I’ve always been self-sufficient. But in recent years, I no longer drive or do my own shopping, which has been very hard to give up.
Does it get any easier? A little, especially now that I know my time is coming.
Are you afraid of dying? Not at all. I’m looking forward to my first great-grandchild and the holidays. That keeps me going. But I don’t have many friends left, and the ones I do, I don’t know well—their backgrounds, children, or what they did for a living—so it’s hard to get close to them. I just want to be with your dad.
Do you have regrets? Well, if I had to do it over again, I definitely would have got a college degree. I also wish I had been closer to my sister. But I went off to live in Yates Center when she was in grade school, then I left for college and got married. I never really had an adult relationship with her until much later.
Did your life turn out the way you imagined? Well, I got off of the farm, which is one of the main things that I wanted to do. Even for me, Rose was a big town compared to our farm. With all the friends we’ve had and my life experiences, I’m very content to have lived during the times that I did. Thinking back on my marriage, you kids, everywhere I’ve been, and all the good times, I’ve been blessed with a very happy and fulfilling life.
How would you like to be remembered? Being a good mother, good friend, good neighbor, and a Christian woman And for being married to such a wonderful man to spend my life with all these years.
early 1900s. She sort of helped set the tone and provided a role model to Mom that you can do other things while being a wife and mother. Grandma went to college, and she really encouraged Mom to go away to high school.
Did you ever see Mom and Dad have any big disagreements?
Kim: Not really. They were in tune with each other’s feelings. Dad was very affectionate and, maybe because he was an only child, he liked to get a lot of attention. But he also gave Mom a lot of attention and affection. They were very supportive of each other. Mom was comfortable taking a back seat, she always said, make sure that Dad thinks it’s his idea. So, in that sense, she could be a master manipulator. … After Dad died, Mom did find more of her own voice. He had always been the public speaker. Now she’s active in meetings and stands up for herself and others, whether if it’s requesting sugarfree deserts or how the staff can better handle emergencies, such if any ambulance is called while everyone is at dinner. I love it.
How did Mom react to you being diagnosed with cancer?
Kim: It can be frustrating and depressing when you’re going through chemo, radiation and the side effects. With our family’s history of cancer and Mom being prone to worry, I was afraid to tell her initially or how much and when to share updates. But she always stayed very positive, which helped both of us. She survived an aneurysm and some other big health issues, so she knew what it was like to deal with hard times. And when I was in the hospital, just sitting there watching cooking shows because I couldn’t eat anything, I started thinking about the food that Mom used to cook. That’s when I came up with the idea to create a family cook book with her. Now she wants to expand even more, including pictures of all the houses she cooked in.
What are some of your favorite memories of her?
Kim:Just being in the kitchen and talking with her with while we were cooking. After the kids were born, Mom came and stayed and spent a week with me. Going to timeshare properties around the country. Those holiday memories are irreplaceable.
Chris: Always cooking us great family meals. And if you ever needed to talk, she was always available to listen and provide comfort. She wears Este Lauder “Beautiful” perfume, it has a distinct smell and always reminds me of Mom.
Danielle: Probably playing cards and dominoes. She is one that you have to watch out for-people see her sweet disposition and think she’s a pushover. Next thing you know, she’s laying down the winning hand.
Can you imagine life without her?
Kim: C’mon, I don’t like to think about it. It’s going to be really tough. I spend a lot of time with her, call her at least every day. There will be a void there that can’t be replaced.
Chris: Of course I’ll miss her. But she also raised us to be independent and enjoy life. That’s her legacy.
IT’S BEEN EIGHT MONTHS SINCE AMMA PASSED. I miss her every day, all the time. Some days it’s manageable, and other days it’s really hard. The triggers are unknown, and it only takes seconds to spiral. I can’t pinpoint anything specific. Someday the void is overwhelming and feels like a heavy weight. Some days it just walks with me like a shadow. So many times I pick up the phone to call her.
SHE HAD INSTRUCTIONS FOR HER LAST RITES AND RITUALS BUT SHE DIDN’T LEAVE INSTRUCTIONS ON WHAT TO DO WHEN WE MISS HER.
I was telling a friend that Amma and I had been talking about this for years. She made a list, a will, and wrote down everything—what to do with her sarees and jewelry. My mother didn’t collect much; she was always good at giving things away. I think she had some intuition, as she gave away a lot of her sarees, books, and household items the last time she was in Balaghat, our hometown. So technically, we didn’t have much to sort through or clean, but whatever she had, she left instructions for. She had instructions for her last rites and rituals, but she didn’t leave instructions on what to do when we miss her. We never talked about what I’d do on my drives to work, when I used to call her. She was my friend, my confidant, my safe place. She didn’t assign anyone to fill the void when I need comforting hugs, soothing smiles, or gentle reassurance when life gets tough. I miss her when I struggle to pick a saree or pack for a vacation—she was always there to dream with me and get excited about new places. I still take pictures, but now it’s hard to send them to anyone. I used to send her dozens without a second thought. Now I carefully choose what to send to my dad, sisters, or anyone else. I have no one to FaceTime while watching a beautiful sunset or sunrise. She wasn’t the biggest fan of Ghazals, but she listened to me ramble on when I found a new song I loved. I miss her presence in so many ways I never thought of before. The season change, spring bloom, or a hot day on a beach reminds me of Mom and her child-like excitements. The last two weeks with the fall color change, I missed our usual FaceTime for my morning walks.
I miss her when I cook or clean, especially when I’m cleaning the bathroom. I’d put her on my headphones, and she’d talk to me about a relative, a book, or a memory from her past. I hate cleaning, but hearing her voice made it easier.
By Jaya Pandey
She wasn’t the best cook in the world, but I still miss calling her for simple recipes. This year for the first time, my garden bloomed with jasmine and Rajnigandha. I missed her terribly when those flowers bloomed. My house was filled with their fragrance, and I longed to tell her it was the first time in my life I grew them—flowers gifted by friends in her memory.
A friend who lost his parents said he lost his childhood. In all honesty, I don’t feel that way. I miss my adult, mature conversations with Amma. I miss her with good and bad. She was there to give me advice, listen to my fears and insecurities, or sometimes just be there assuring me that things will be fine.
They say time is a healer. I hope it’s true. But when I think about it—will I stop needing a friend in a couple of years? Will I no longer crave a safe space? Or will I just resign myself to living without that now?
Sometimes, I miss my smiling, laughing Amma, who would joke, “Payback time, kiddo—whatever you did to your mom, your kids will do to you.” She always said all of her daughters were their father’s girls and that none of us understood her.
I wish she could see how much we’re Amma’s daughters, how much we’re hurting, and how much we miss her. Her absence is so vast that it’s hard to cope. Whenever she argued with Papa, she would say that none of us understood her side. But now, I wish I could hug her one more time and tell her that we do get it. Papa just needed someone to take his side, but she didn’t—because she was strong. She wasn’t just our strength; she was his, too.
My sisters are learning to cope with the loss of her physical presence too. She didn’t spend much time at my house, but she was a constant presence in theirs. It’s not only my sisters who miss Amma, but also their cleaning ladies, cooks, drivers, and neighbors. I think it’s harder for my sisters because she was part of their everyday lives. She was there at home when they walked in from work or anywhere else, checking on them, asking about their day, requesting tea, and suggesting they sit for a few minutes before doing anything else at home. I can imagine how difficult it is for them to walk in and not see her in the living room, or to have no one urging them to rest, take a breather, or simply asking about their day.
As I learn to live with this loss, I understand her final gift to me was a lesson in life, a reminder to live fully, enjoy each day and love whole heartedly. I know I carry her within me every day.
Smile, be happy, and spread joy the way you always did, Amma. Please know you’re being missed.
I love you.
I NEVER WROTE MY MOTHER AN OBITUARY. Her ashes are still un-scattered in my house. It’s been three years, and I still can’t let her go. How do you say goodbye to your mother? The person who gave you breath, who taught you how to live, who sacrificed so much for you? You can’t.
She sacrifices, she stands by you, she shapes and molds you, she understands you better than anyone. If you have a great one, she has your back like no-one else ever could or will. I had a great one. We all know how great our mothers are; This is why we are obsessed with her when we’re young. We don’t let her of sight or give her a moment’s peace. Then, we go through the stage of pulling away and breaking their hearts. God, do we break their hearts. Yet, they keep loving us anyway. Eventually, with luck we become parents ourselves and realize the soul-crushing love our mothers have for us.
I always knew to my core that I was the center of my mother’s universe. In some respects, she didn’t have a lot of choices about who her favorite person was. I am an only child and my father died when I was six. But she didn’t have to pour so much of herself into me. She didn’t have to choose my feelings over dating or scuba lessons, but she did. She didn’t even try to convince my 8 yearold-self that scuba diving wasn’t dangerous, she just knew it would be too much worry for a little girl who already lost her father.
By Sue Rocca Fischer
illness in a time when people didn’t understand it and certainly didn’t talk about, she had great empathy for other people. She taught me that people are people, no matter what! It doesn’t matter where you live, who you love or what you look like. And I’m not sure if her bipolar fueled her love of life, or if she would have been as just as adventurous and resilient without it. But goodness, she was an amazing mix of attributes. She was always unapologetically true to herself. Yes, she could be ornery as hell, but she never put on airs or tried to be someone she wasn’t. She was comfortable in her own skin and authentically herself. Growing up with a bipolar mother I learned to care a little less about what other people thought of me, and more about being a good friend and neighbor.
She taught me so well and effortlessly about life. How did she do that? I struggle to walk all these tight ropes with my kids. Do I let them go to Sephora and buy skin care at 9 years old? There is no way my mother would have ever stepped foot into Sephora. Raising girls has always been hard, but with social media today, it’s even harder. I wish Dot was still here to ground me and my children, and remind us of what’s important. She
SHE WAS COMFORTABLE IN HER OWN SKIN AND AUTHENTICALLY HERSELF. GROWING UP WITH A BIPOLAR MOTHER I LEARNED TO CARE A LITTLE LESS ABOUT WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THOUGHT OF ME, AND MORE ABOUT BEING A GOOD FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR..
Now, as a married woman with two young daughters of my own, what my mother accomplished is even more astounding, because she did it all while struggling with mental illness. I try to imagine it; the love of your life dyingthe grief and paralyzing fear that you now bear the sole responsibility for everything. Having to still work, pay bills and do all the other mundane things required to keep life going. But that’s what moms do, right? Unless their brain chemistry doesn’t let them.
My childhood was marked by having to put my mother in the hospital because of her bipolar episodes. Our next-door neighbor who helped care for me called it “Spring Training” because it happened every Spring to one degree or another. There are numerous stories that I now tell with humor, and I’m sure many more stories that I don’t remember because I was too young. We did not live close to family, so during my mother’s manic phases, it was the neighborhood and her amazing friend group who stepped in to help. But through it all, her love for me was what motivated her to get help when she needed it, which was always such a powerful reminder to me of our bond. I know there are children of mental illness who are left behind in some really terrible ways.
I think because of my mother’s struggles with mental
taught me how to be a strong, independent woman and that a little struggle is important. She taught by example as well as exposing me to as many different experiences as possible. She gave me my love of nature (cussing every new strip mall being built) and water (getting us on the water at every chance). She endured freezing ice skating lessons at ungodly hours on Saturdays, horseback lessons, skiing—all the sports. How did she have time?
She lived widely and was so accomplished. She was a skilled knitter, wood refinisher, boater, gardener, carver, rug maker, birder, camper, hiker, athlete, and traveler. And she never met a stranger; she talked to everyone. She tried teaching me all her hobbies; some stuck, some didn’t. But I don’t do any of it as well as she did. What she instilled in me is a love of life and a pride in who I am that I desperately want to pass on to my daughters.
I find myself wishing I had more time, wishing I could remember everything. Heck, that I even knew everything about her. But our heads never remember all the things that our hearts wants to. All you can do is know that the love stays. I’ll be over here struggling to pass on those life-lessons to my daughters that Dot Rocca made look so easy.
Photo: Bridget Ryan Snell
By Alisha Semprini Kelly
—a contrast that seemed to define us in more ways than one. “Angel,” she used to call me. “When I saw your jet-black hair and your red and olive skin, I asked the nurse if she handed me the right baby.” She would smile as she told the story, recounting the day I was born. I was her “little papoose.”
She came from a large Irish Catholic family of nine. I, her only child.
She shone in the spotlight—so comfortable and at ease at center stage. I, shy and reserved, was drawn to quieter art forms, expressing my inner world through dance and deciphering the deeper meanings left behind on canvases, always preferring my place on the periphery.
She was a singer. As a young girl, occasionally I accompanied her to her weekly gig at a 1930s Cape Cod cottage converted restaurant. I would sit on my stool, stage left, coloring, while she belted out Linda Ronstadt and Fleetwood Mac to a hazy, dim room of patrons who smiled and applauded as they dined. At the close of her show, she’d take my three-year-old hand in hers and walk me across the stage in our matching velour dresses she sewed us, singing Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child.”
Those memories are buried in the dusty corners of my mind, like the faded photographs from the early ‘80s, their edges blurred with a sepia tint. Her voice—distinct and rich—however, still clearly resonates within me.
My mom soon realized that singing in smoky restaurants wasn’t conducive to being the mom she wanted to be, as she became a single mother. Determined to be self-reliant, she put herself through grad school and pursued her second passion: social work, where she could channel her deep compassion. Her singing became
her side hustle.
She sang ballads that she and my stepdad composed. They recorded them for demos they sent to New York and London, in pursuit of their dream. She led our congregation in hymnals, her voice filling the church, as I, in my teenage angst, would sink lower in my seat, raising my hymnal to cover my embarrassed face. And years later, she sang in jazz quartets, at galleries and events, collecting a wonderful group of musician friends.
Second to singing, was her love of vacations. And she and I were a traveling duo.
As a young girl, with resources slim, we camped and stayed with family in the White Mountains. As time went on, we stayed in B&Bs and with family across the English and Scottish countryside. Then, one day in eighth grade, I remember her excitedly telling me, “Lishy!” waving a handful of tri-fold travel brochures— there was no worldwide web yet—“We’re going to walk along pink sand beaches and swim in crystal water caves! We’re going to Bermuda!” Even though we lived on a seven-mile peninsula framed by hundreds of miles of beaches, we were both excited for this tropical and exotic adventure.
Each year, there was someplace new. A trip to Quebec, “So you can practice your French, Lishy.” DC, for the history, and Florida for the warmth. Eventually, I took my own trip away from our seasonally sleepy seaside town and moved to the big city. Though my life had changed after moving to the city, our adventures together continued. Only a couple hours away, she would visit me and we’d meander through the Boston Garden. We had afternoon tea at the Ritz, admired the fashions and fine art through the brownstone windows of Newbury Street, and spent afternoons at the MFA. I’d tell her the stories behind the dramatic paintings, the tortured lives of the artists who created them.
“IN THAT VERY SAME PLACE WHERE EDITH PIAF ONCE SANG, MY MOTHER HAD A CHANCE TO TAKE THE STAGE, HER VOICE NOW SOFT, SLOWER, AND FILLED WITH A QUIET STRENGTH, SHE SANG EDITH’S SONG “...AND SOON I’LL HEAR OLD WINTER’S SONG, BUT I’LL MISS YOU MOST OF ALL MY DARLING, WHEN AUTUMN LEAVES START TO FALL.”
Et le vent du Nord les emporte
Dans la nuit froide de l’oubli
Tu vois, je n’ai pas oublie
La chanson que tu me chantais
C’est un chanson
Qui nous ressemble
Toi qui m’aimais
Et je t’aimais
Nous vivions tous les deux ensemble
Toi, qui m’aimais
Moi, qui t’aimais
Mais la vie separe
Ceux qui s’aiment
Along our walks, she always dropped money into the cups held by trembling hands of homeless people we’d pass. Her empathy and convictions superseded any dismissive judgment. Sometimes, we ventured into the tea room in Downtown Crossing to see what our tea leaves foretold of our futures. Not once did they reveal what would forever alter our lives.
Her diagnosis came as a shock: late-stage ovarian cancer, at just 52. But we kept our hope and didn’t let it derail our next adventure: France. We drove through the Dordogne River Valley, in awe of the ingenuity and creativity of prehistoric peoples’ cave drawings and the villages they carved in the sides of cliffs. We made our pilgrimage to Lourdes, and marched in its candlelight procession, bought bottles of its healing holy water, and prayed for a miracle.
We visited the Louvre, Versailles, and walked the steps of Montmartre to have our portraits sketched by street artists on the same cobblestone walkways where Monet, Renoir, and Degas once painted. And in that very same place where Edith Piaf once sang, my mother had a chance to take the stage, her voice now soft, slower, and filled with a quiet strength, she sang Edith’s song… “…And soon I’ll hear old winter’s song…but I’ll miss you most of all, my darling, when autumn leaves start to fall…”
I stood up and clapped as hard and loud as I could, exclaiming “Bravo!” My cheeks flushed with pride and admiration this time, with a tinge of sadness. I was never more proud to be her daughter. I knew it took all the strength she had to get up and sing that day. But she did. She accomplished her goal of singing in the famous Parisian jazz clubs.
On our way back to the hotel, as we rushed to board the Metro just inches apart, the doors abruptly slammed shut between us and we were suddenly separated—in a foreign city. Without a phone or any way to reach her, panic set in. I feared I wouldn’t be able to find her again. I got off at the next stop and prayed that somehow, someway, she would too.
I waited. Trains passed, minutes felt like hours, and my heartbeat pounded in my chest. I froze. Then, finally, through the noise and the subway steam, I saw
her blonde hair amidst the crowd. As the doors opened, she finally stepped out, and I ran to her. I hugged her tighter than I had since I was a little girl, not wanting to let her go. Tears streamed down my face—tears for that moment, for everything I’d been holding inside and didn’t want to accept, for what I knew was coming. Though we were different, she was my mom, a piece of me that I never wanted to let go of. I hoped my tears were telling her that.
But as that winter came, the days did grow longer. She had fought so hard, and for so long, surpassing the timelines the doctors predicted. It was me who now took her delicate and fragile hand in mine, and whispered to her, “Rest, Mama, just rest.” And she did. I knew I had to let her go. This time, though, forever.
As autumn returns each year, I watch the breeze blow the leaves in a playful dance. I close my eyes, feel the fading golden rays on my cheeks, listen to the wind whisper and the birds sing their own beautiful songs. And I realize, though my mom may have exited the stage, she is central to the story of my life. She lives on in the echoes of my laugh, and in the lullabies I sang to my children when they were young. Above all, she lives on in the love I pass on to them. And if I listen closely, sometimes I feel her say “it’s ok if you flub your lines or miss a note, Alisha, step up and sing along to the dance of life anyway.
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Janet Bibeau + Joanne Bibeau
Mother-Daughter relationships are as diverse as each party of each relationship. In this issue of Pink Chair Storytellers we have chosen to highlight books telling the stories of mothers and daughters in different time periods and of varying backgrounds. Several of the stories involve three generations of grandmothers, mothers, and daughters. The constant concept is that nothing is constant. Each relationship has its own narrative formed by determining factors, twists and turns, nuances, triggers and reinforcers: as well as nationality and cultural influences, family histories, personal choices, and specific unique events — often with an underlying desire to love and be loved.
The Mother-Daughter Relationship Makeover: 4 Steps to Bring Back the Love
By Leslie Glass | Health Communications, Inc. (2024)
This is the work of Leslie Glass (journalist, novelist, playwright, and documentarian) and her daughter Lindsey Glass (author, screenwriter, and recovery/ mental health advocate). They have developed a journaling guidebook made up of 4 steps, each with several subparts: Step 1: Self Discovery/Revealing Your Backstory; Step 2: Mother-Daughter Areas of Conflict/Exploring Emotional and Personality Styles; Step 3: Understanding Your Triggers, Trauma, and Conflict Resolution; Step 4: Healing and Reconciliation/Learning the Tools to Restore the Love. The fact that both Leslie and Lindsey promote how important it is to write your thoughts, stories, ideas and give guidance on how to do this seems appropriate for readers of “Pink Chair Storytellers.” Each section includes journal prompts, some to be disclosed to the other, some to keep to yourself. Leslie and Lindsey share their personal individual and joint stories including
and a 4 year split as they proceed through each of the steps. They even discuss if there are relationships that should not be sustained and how to survive the decision to permanently “break-up.”
By Ann Napolitano | Dial Press Trade Paperback (2024)
This is NY Times Bestseller and award winning author, Ann Napolitano’s first novel, written at the age of age of 32. It was rereleased this past year. This story of a complicated, large, Irish Catholic family is told from the point of view of 6 narrators, 5 of them woman including matriarch Catharine McLaughlin (who imagines seeing and hearing advice from her long dead mother), Catharine’s daughter Kelly, and Kelly’s daughter Gracie, who is a 29-year-old, unmarried, pregnant Catholic woman in the late 1980s, as well as Kelly’s daughter, Lila, and Noreen Ballen, another woman/mother (a family outsider with an unexpected connection). As the story unfolds, the
narrators’ stories sometimes overlap and contradict each other. The family and history ties that bind the grandmother, daughter, and granddaughters are both a curse and a source of support and strength, unavoidable but also enduring even if they do not want to admit it. This novel is a rich, complicated story. The women are not of an era or nationality or even religion in the ‘80s to discuss feelings, needs, or relationships. They would have no clue what to do with Leslie and Lindsey’s handbook!
By Sarah C. Johns | Random House Trade Paperbacks (2024)
Florida, 1999. Three generations of women. There is Dale who is Cherie’s birthmother and refers to herself as the “secondary mother.” There is Marlys who was (and still is) a close friend to Dale but who “stole” Dale’s husband and child years ago becoming Mom/”primary mother” to Cherie. There is Cherie, a woman in her late 50s who has always been the strong, organized woman of the home but is recently feeling as though no one needs her anymore. Finally, there is Laura, Cherie’s daughter who is expecting her first child and whose husband has left her for her best friend because both he and the married best friend do not want any children. Dale, who never asks for help, asks Cherie to come to Florida because she and several friends may lose their affordable senior housing. However,
it is soon obvious Dale also wanted her to come because Marlys is dying. Cherie develops a plan to help Dale and her friends while staying in Florida to be with Marlys and to provide her daughter Laura with a distraction. With Cherie as manager and Laura as coach, they will organize Dale and her friends into a competitive, senior synchronized swimming team so that they can enter a contest and win $10,000. The 3 women learn more about themselves and each other and their complicated relationships as they work on a common goal. They own their mistakes and rebuild/strengthen their bonds as they explore aging, motherhood, and forgiveness.
By Wohoopi Goldberg | Blackstone Publishing (2024)
Whoopi Goldberg’s memoir, illuminating the truth that “because of [her]Mom [Whoopi] was able to go from being Caryn Johnson, the little weird kid from the projects who no one ever expected to achieve all that much, to being Whoopi Goldberg.” This book is certainly Whoopi’s love letter to her mother who died suddenly in 2010 (and to her brother who died in 2015). For all of us who have lost our mothers, Whoopi gives us a moving reminder to treasure the enduring impact our mother has had on our life and cherish the important lessons she taught us in words and/or actions.
By Melissa de la Cruz | Union Square & Co./Sterling Publishing
(2024)
This is not so much a story of merged tropes of enemies to lovers and faked to real as it is an engaging story of the slow-growing relationship of Evan and Dalisay aided by a gradual appreciation of the nuances of the Filipino 5-stage courtship ritual. Dalisay’s relationship
with her grandmother and mother as nuanced by strong family love, tradition, and notions of romance play an underlying role in this story. Can love emerge from a dare, traditions, modern times, complicated family histories and current relationships? You bet (pun intended)!
By Nina Simon | William Morrow/ Harper Collins (2023)
A mystery that is solved by a MotherDaughter-Granddaughter team. All three are very strong women: Lana who is not going to let a cancer diagnosis slow her down even if it means leaving her lucrative real estate business to live with her daughter and granddaughter in a small town along a slough. Beth, a nurse, who left home upon becoming pregnant and has made it on her own, raising her daughter Jack who is now 15, and is determined to not let her Mom lead her life. Jack, a teenager who is in tune with nature and is a kayak guide when not at school. She loves her grandmother whom she calls “Prima” and has a very close relationship with her mom. A murdered body is found on Jack’s kayaking session and she becomes a murder suspect. These 3 amazing women all bring their skills toward clearing Jack’s name. Can they get past their differences and respect each other’s abilities in order to solve this mystery?
By Tracy Chevalier | Viking/Penguin Random House (2024)
This is a unique story of a woman in a glassmaking family. Orsola Rosso, after her father’s tragic death, secretly learns to make glass beads to help her family survive. Her mother is a strong matriarch who keeps the family going. Glassmakers are confined to the Island of Murano so that their secrets and
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talents cannot be stolen. Venice is the center of commerce in 1486 when the story begins. In this unique book, Orsola’s family skips through hundreds of years but their family members only age 4 to 8 years through each skip. They live through the plague years, the World Wars, and even Covid 19. The women in this extended family are the true cooperative driving forces, homemakers and change makers, the ones who face the future and make the changes necessary in their glassmaking business to survive. The reader experiences the love and sorrow
of a family over time and also learns the glorious and sad history of glassmaking and of Venice, Italy.
X
By Elizabeth Acevedo | Harper Collins (2018)
This is a novel written in verse for teens. This story is about Xiomara (X), an AfroLatina teenager living in Harlem and her twin brother, Xavier. She is the feisty, stronger twin often defending her brother.
Her mother is a fervent religious, Catholic mother. X is conflicted with her religion and her sexuality. She is being forced to go to Confirmation classes and secretly would rather be going to a poetry group. This mother-daughter relationship is very combative and toxic. It takes a mediator to help them begin to understand each other and help her mother accept and respect X. This is a moving story with no clear answers, but that keeps you asking questions.
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THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
Just a little note to say thank you to the Pink Chair Storytellers community for the love I received following my cover story in the 2024 Identity issue. The outpouring of support around my breast cancer diagnosis has meant the world to me. May I give you a health update?
My lumpectomy scars are healing, 16 radiation treatments are completed, and Tamoxifen and I are trying to get along. I started this hormone suppressant in April and it wasn’t long before the side effects started: night sweats, leg cramps, hair loss, and memory lapses. Fun times over here.
Breast cancer has aged me in body, mind, and soul, but I am also very aware of how lucky I am. If you want to feel fortunate, spend some time in the waiting room at Dana Farber’s breast oncology department where you will meet women struggling just to stay alive.
I’ve spent my entire career as a broadcaster, providing a platform for women to tell their stories, so it probably won’t surprise you to know that I’d rather be asking the questions than giving the answers.
That pretty Pink Storytellers’ chair demands the truth, but it’s hard to go
deep and reveal it, because that’s where vulnerability lives.
Sharing all the details of my breast cancer journey in this magazine and on social media was a conscious decision. I didn’t want to hide what I was going through in the hopes that my story might help someone else.
One of the many life lessons I’ve learned this year is that adversity is a great teacher. You will never know how strong you are until you are tested to the limit.
And here’s another truth: You have to experience something firsthand before you really know how it feels. There are times in life when you must earn the right to talk about an illness or a loss before you get the privilege of discussing it.
By the time you read this, I’ll be celebrating one year as a breast cancer survivor. Every step of the way, wise women have taken me under their wings. That’s because we’re connected in an endless chain of hope, support, and sisterhood. About two
months after my diagnosis, my beautiful niece Stephanie was diagnosed with triple positive breast cancer. I can still remember her frantic texts and our tearful phone calls. Did I take her under my wing? Absolutely. And I will continue to offer my support to any woman who needs me, every single chance I get.
Webster’s Dictionary defines wisdom as: The quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment.
Recently, I collected some of the wise words survivors have shared with me to create a 5x7 card called Breast Cancer Wisdom. Clip it right out of this magazine or download it from my website: CandyOTerry.com.
Thanks for the love! I love you right back.
Why do I still feel alone in a room full of people?
I grew up in a very large family. I am the oldest of 7 children. My parents came from large families as well, my mom having 11 siblings and my father having 5. Our house was always full and loud. But even with so many people
around me, I would still feel alone, sad, unloved, or special.
There is a big age gap between my siblings. The second child is 6 years apart from me, so when I am 16 years old, dealing with teenage issues, my 10-year-old sister could not relate. There was always this pressure to remain a positive example for them.
When I was 12, I saved my birthday money to buy jewelry and candy. My mother stopped at store with candy and I was excited to buy what I wanted with my birthday money. I always shared with my siblings. From the moment they were born, I was placed in a position where I often felt like a second mother to them. So before walking into that store, I was fully prepared to spend part of my money on my siblings. I told them all to pick one candy for $1, and spent the rest of my money on what I wanted. By the time we got back home, as children do, my siblings ate all their candy and wanted more. My youngest sister was 3 and wanted more of my candy. I gave her one. Then my 5-yearold sister wanted one was well. One of my sisters starting to cry. I said no, but my mother and father told me, “Come on, your older, just give it to her.” I was so upset that I threw the rest of the candy, yelled at my siblings, and said “You’re ruining my life!” I ran upstairs to my room and started crying. My parents told me I was overreacting, “Its just candy, relax.” They made me feel ashamed. This wasn’t the first time I felt pressured to give my all to others and left very little for myself. That moment made me feel alone. My siblings are too young to understand, and my parents want me to dismiss my feelings to cater to others, but who was paying attention to me?
In a session with my therapist recently, she pointed out to me that I often surround myself with selfish people. She also helped me acknowledge how much I enable that behavior. “If you keep letting people walk all over you, they will.”
As a child, there’s often the feeling that you can’t say “no.” Your life is ruled by the adults and often this feeling that you have no control of your life. For years, I constantly had this loneliness. I felt like fraud. I changed myself to make them comfortable. Even if they were comfortable, I felt unhappy, like I was constantly experiencing an
out-of-body experience. No matter where I was, who I was with, there was this constant loneliness.
It would take therapy for me to acknowledge that feeling was depression. That depression came from my inability to love myself and be my true self without feeling pressured or that I am disappointing others. I wonder what life would be like if I was aware of this in my younger years?
While the connections you build with the people in your life is important, the connection that you build with yourself is even more important. This has been the hardest for me to fully understand. I have to be the one telling myself how amazing I am. I have to be able to laugh at myself. I have to love being one one-on-one with myself. I have to love myself. Not in a over-the-top conceited way, in a healthy way. The older and wiser I become, the more I realize that the relationship I have with myself at this stage of my life sets the tone for the relationship I have with other people.
Human beings are naturally selfish with lots of flaws. If you have read any of my previous pieces, you might be more well-educated on the history of Haitian culture. The suffering my community has experienced for several generations has caused generational curses to linger until someone decides to break them. Every parent wants their child to do better than they did. I can honestly say that my parents did everything they could with the tools and education they had. They broke several generational curses, but one of them that continues to be hard to break is this understanding that we must sacrifice our happiness to survive. For the Haitian community, doing everything to survive is the norm; experiencing happiness, true happiness is not the norm.
Lets bring it back to the candy debacle with my siblings. Now that I am a mother and know that giving up my candy isn’t a big deal, to the 12-year-old me, it was a big deal. My parents told me to do what probably made sense to them at the time. I am aware now how much of their happiness they sacrificed, but what they were doing was asking for me to
sacrifice all my happiness for my siblings. This left me unhappy, feeling unloved, not important, which translated to other situations in my life.
I would suffer in silence most of my life. My parents worked too hard for me to bother them with my issues and my experience had taught me that expressing my feelings often got dismissed. I would open up to friends who would later on abandon me to build closer relationships with others who could relate to them better (white American culture). At the time that I was growing up on Cape Cod, there was a lack of Black and Brown individuals around me, and when I encountered someone of the same race, I often found we still could not relate because there was a deeper cultural disconnect. It was hard to build connections with other Haitian children because in our culture, we focused on 3 things, L’Eglise, La Kai, L’kole. Church, Home, School. Your siblings are your friends. But if your siblings are almost 10 years younger, how can we be friends in adolescence?
When you have no one, what do you do? At times, contemplate ending your life. I often processed my trauma alone. When I was sexually assaulted for the second time as a teen, I kept it to myself. I had no one to connect to, to discuss my feelings. Living in such a small town that is not that diverse, my last name became well known. My father is a pastor at the local church and my parents worked hard for us to be in a more upper middle-class neighborhood. Given the lack of diversity, any trouble I could possibly get into would get back to my parents in a snap of a finger. I often stayed to myself and kept my secrets to myself. Feeling like I had no one in the world to really connect to.
The first authentic friendship I developed was my first year in college. It was Freshman orientation I remember meeting this outspoken, tall Black Jamaican young adult who resembled Tyra Banks. She had this aura around her that was so bright, warm, and open. As an ice breaker, our orientation leaders asked us to bring up something special from the summer. The day before was my birthday,
I stated that I just turned 18 the day before, then she said she just turned 18 yesterday as well. I realized she is a Virgo like me, we started talking and found out we were born hours apart (I’m older by 2 hours). She gave me this energy that made me feel accepted. Over the years, our friendship has grown into more than friends, we are now family. One of the things I appreciate the most about my
It was hard to build connections with other Haitian children because in our culture, we focused on 3 things, L’Eglise, La Kai, L’kole. Church, Home, School.
best friend Dee is her transparency, self love, and ability to challenge me to be myself unapologetically. Having a friend like her, finally seeing and accepting me for me, allowed me to continue to build relationships with others in my life. I would be more myself and those who did not accept me could “kick rocks.” It’s funny how one person can make such an impact on your life.
Imagine if I were able to build connections like during earlier stages of my life. Did you know that the first 5 years of a child’s development are the most crucial? The first 5 years of a child’s development is when a child’s brain develops more rapidly. It sets the tone for their learning, behavior, and mental health. The connections we build during that stage of development can affect how we view ourselves. My family’s generational curses translated to me sacrificing who I was to fit in and make the people around me happy/comfortable. One of the reasons I love sharing my experiences with others is to show them that if you are someone dealing with similar feelings of loneliness, recognize that you are not alone. I know what it’s like to feel alone in a room full of people, to question, “What’s the point?” We often think we should be perfect people. That’s not accurate. Experiencing peace, love, and happiness should not be a luxury, it’s a necessity and a right.
Honoring Brynn
I’m staring at the maternity ward ceiling, making a deal with God. The ultrasound tech asked me if I wanted to look at the screen. Nope. He was offering me evidence that my full-term baby girl had no heartbeat. My eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling. The deal I made was this: I would not leave my faith in God for this as long as I was not left alone for one second without celestial support.
I called Jimmy, my husband, and said the baby went away. Those were the words that I could muster. He called his parents to pick up Shane, our 3-yearold son, who was currently snuggled against me on the hospital gurney. “Is she blubbering?” I asked about his mother. In my shock, I could not deal with anyone else’s sadness—it made the situation too real.
We focused on getting through labor and tried to put all other thoughts out of our minds for the moment. I slept in a Pitocin drip, and in the early morning, I called in the midwife to get things going. She broke my water, my labor progressed furiously and I gave birth within the hour, at 7:30 am on January 29, 2010.
Jimmy held our baby girl and named her Brynn. I said her middle name would be Tessa, a nickname for Teresa, the nickname for my great grandmother and my namesake. She was utterly beautiful to us, perfect and heavy, weighing 6 lbs. 14 oz., measuring 20 1/2 inches, taller than her brother had been. According to what we could see, and what we were told, there was no evidence of the cause of death. I couldn’t help but ask her what happened, one of the few sentences I would utter to her little body. What happened to you?
It had been a healthy pregnancy, my second, and I had felt confident for all 9 months of it. The concerns I had during the last weeks of pregnancy were quickly calmed when voiced to my midwife. The strange left-side contractions I felt 2 nights prior were dismissed as indigestion over the phone. I never felt Brynn move after those contractions, and I now realized that’s when she died.
We came home from the hospital without our baby. She had been kept in a refrigerator and picked up by the funeral home the day before. Jimmy and I would take turns playing with Shane while the other locked themselves in the upstairs bathroom, turned on the fan, and ran the shower for more white noise so we could wail as loudly as we needed to without scaring our toddler. My milk came in. I could not fathom how I’d move on without my baby to nurse. That was the lowest point for me.
I had intense dreams where nobody knew she was alive but us, and we had to keep her in a box so nobody would take her away because they didn’t understand the magic. I met my friend at a playground
after holing up at home for weeks. While our kids played, I told her how I kept trying to figure out ways to bring my baby back. After she’d been dead a month. My friend looked at me with deep concern, probably wondering if she should alert a healthcare professional.
I called multiple mental health agencies myself, actually. On the phone I would say my baby died and I’d like a therapist. Most never called back. I finally found a grief therapist and I hated it. Unless you’ve been through as devastating a loss, you can’t really guide a person through the process. Sharing my gory, blood-soaked horror story with someone who responded with professionalism was more painful than keeping my thoughts to myself.
Returning to the outside world reopened wounds. I was keenly aware that my presence gutted people. Casual acquaintances in our neighborhood who had seen me pregnant, asking where’s the baby. I’d have to retell my tragic tale and watch their faces turn sad and pale. Then I felt like somehow I was supposed to comfort them. It was exhausting.
Socializing was exhausting because I felt I had to protect acquaintances from thinking about my dead baby, when she was all I wanted to think about. I hated hearing “Sorry for your loss.” Anyone who said “Everything happens for a reason,” to me is lucky their throat is still intact. Interacting with people, even close friends, was unbearably awkward for me, often made me feel more alone, and sometimes made me violently rageful.
The first time I took my son to his regular playgroup after my maternity/ bereavement leave, a mom congratulated me as she could see I was no longer pregnant.
“No, the baby died.” I didn’t mince words because I didn’t want to leave any room for confusion. The problem with my sentence of choice is that it’s so shocking it seems like a really dark joke. I watched her jaw drop and her eyes look down. I started laughing at the absurdity of this moment. I was just trying to get through a 45-minute playgroup here.
That mom did not smile, speak, or look
at me again. Our children collided and her daughter’s lip began to bleed. Fitting, I thought, now I can be the heartless, laughing mother of a stillborn and, by offspring, inflict bodily harm on your children as well.
I had to forgive the people in my life
“No, the baby died.” I didn’t mince words because I didn’t want to leave any room for confusion. The problem with my sentence of choice is that it’s so shocking, it seems like a really dark joke.
for not knowing how to respond to my unimaginable, devastating loss. Everyone grieves differently and is allowed to name for themselves what helps and what doesn’t. For whatever it’s worth, I appreciated cards, texts asking how I am, messages of love, food, and books. The books that I found the most helpful were “An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination” by Elizabeth McCracken, “I Will Carry You” by Angie Smith, “Naming the Child” by Jenny Schroedel, “Closer to the Light” by Melvin Morse, and “The Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion. These authors went to the depths with me and comforted me.
Three weeks after giving birth to Brynn, I started a blog (www.honoringbrynn. blogspot.com), to let people know how I was doing without having to respond to all the individual concerns and to protect myself from well-meaning people and their good intentions.
I didn’t have the energy to be anything other than authentically grieving, heartbroken, and crazy. It was too exhausting to pretend to be anything else. In “The Year of Magical Thinking,” Joan Didion talks about how 9 months after she loses her husband, she begins to feel fragile. How at this point, we see our continued cognitive deficits, anxieties, whatever creeps in at this point … our sadness, as self-pity. As “failure
to manage the situation.” The blog freed me from the social pressure to appear as though I was “managing.”
The blog was a safe place for me to talk about my baby, who, in spite of dying in my womb and not having a birth certificate, was every bit a real girl to me.
Brynn was a super active baby. At her ultrasound we saw her doing forward rolls. We were in disbelief. My nickname for her was “Kicky.” She seemed to be searching for the exit. “Buscando la Salida,” I used to say to her. I knew all along that I was in for a huge challenge with her. I had a sense that she was very strong-willed and independent. She was an unapologetic, fierce feminine force. She kicked me so hard that last week of her life, I could see the shape of her foot extending my belly.
We had our little bedtime routine, every night when I’d lay down next to Shane to sing him to sleep, she’d move along to the song. She did not like meat of any kind. I could eat the most bitter vegetables all day long with her. I’d have an overeasy egg on a bed of dark greens with balsamic vinaigrette for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I drank gallons of lime-ade mixed with coconut milk. Some mornings I’d have a lime-coconut popsicle before breakfast. I craved grapefruits and Greek yogurt. She was a healthy eater. I am so proud of my daughter and thoroughly enjoy sharing her. She is a legend to me. A feminine spirit so wild and free that no body could hold her. When I think of her I think of being unapologetically who I am. And cosmically connected. Writing about her healed me. I did not know then the profound impact my daughter would have on the world.
Readers began checking the blog routinely—I could feel their love for her. When I discovered she’d been buried in a T-shirt, friends and acquaintances donated their wedding dresses in Brynn’s name to an organization that sews infant burial gowns. I got to say what was helpful to me and what wasn’t and let people into my grief in a way that felt authentic and
continued on page 76
Let’s Talk About Hope
I want to talk about hope. If I had to guess, I’d say most people feel some sense of hopelessness about the state of the world. And—maybe personally speaking—have been feeling that way for as long as they can remember. There is so much despair and suffering and loss, and it feels like the easiest thing in the world to give up. To accept the feeling of
being crushed by, well, everything. I could list so many local, national, and global tragedies, but I don’t need to. I know you already have a running list in your head. What does it mean to have hope at a time that feels so hopeless, and how do we have hope for a future in the face of so much disaster? What does it mean to look back on generations and the hope they had for us, and how can we instill this hope into our collective futures?
I think the most immediate and pressing thing that I hear folks talk about, especially folks of the Millenial/Gen Z generations, is the climate crisis. Why plan for the future when we won’t have a future? How can we ethically have children in a time of global climate breakdown? But really, insert any social issue into the above statement and it would be the same. We’re scared. I’m scared. And it feels near impossible to have hope for a future that might not be safe, especially for marginalized folks.
Recently, I’ve been reading Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. In it, the author, José Esteban Muñoz writes about what it means to have hope, how to build the future we want.
It is not hope for a perfect world, but something better than the here and now. He opens the book with,
“Queerness is not yet here. Queerness is an ideality…We may never touch queerness, but we can feel it as the warm illumination of a horizon imbued with potentiality. We have never been queer, yet queerness exists for us as an ideality that can be distilled from the past and used to imagine a future…we must dream and enact new and better pleasures, other ways of being in the world, and ultimately new worlds. Queerness is a longing that propels us onward, beyond romances of the negative and toiling in the present. Queerness is that thing that lets us feel that this world is not enough, that indeed something is missing.”
It’s okay to demand something better for ourselves, to work collectively toward a better future that we all deserve. And “collective futures” is the key here. We have to care about our community and care about the collective well-being of each other, not just in the present but in the future. To look around at the struggles of our neighbors and our community members and say, I do not accept the way things have been, this is not enough.
There’s this quote that I think about at least once a day. It’s from Mariame Kaba, an activist and prison abolitionist. She’s been quoted as saying, “Hope is a discipline,” and for me, there’s no better way of looking at the world. “Hope is a discipline” can be applied to any situation and any political call to action. Mariame Kaba works for prison abolition, but she also does work in community accountability and transformative justice.
Kaba says that hope is not naive and it’s not optimism, but it has to be the driving force in every political action. “I always tell people, for me, hope doesn’t preclude feeling sadness or frustration or anger or any other emotion that makes total sense. Hope isn’t an emotion, you know? Hope is not optimism…because in the world
Sam is reading “Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity” by José
Esteban Muñoz
we live in, it’s easy to feel a sense of hopelessness.” (from “We Do This ‘Til We Free Us, Hope is a Discipline” Interview by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein in Beyond Prisons, January 2018).
It’s hard work to be hopeful, but it’s necessary. It’s full of struggle and difficulty; “It’s less about ‘how you feel,’ and more about the practice of making a decision every day, that you’re still gonna put one foot in front of the other, that you’re still going to get up in the morning,” Kaba has said in Intercept magazine. You can be a pessimist and still think that the only way to make collective change, to make positive change in our world, is with hope.
Personally, it’s hard to separate my entire being and lived experience from hope. It is, after all, my middle name (not a joke I promise; “Hope” is actually my middle name given to me by my parents). It’s a trivial connection, but I like to think that my parents gave me hope as a prescription, as a destined way to live my life.
I think my grandparents gave me the gift of hope as well. Both sides of my family come from the same island in the Azores. All of my grandparents moved here for a better life, for a future. It’s the immigrant story, after all. The American Dream. And what is the American Dream if not bloody, exhausted, overworked hope?
What does it mean to fight for a future that we won’t get to see? What does it mean to leave your country and the only place you’ve ever known for a better future for not only yourself but for your future family? How can we put so much faith in hope? Some might argue that you can’t live on hope alone. Hope won’t feed you or keep you safe. But it may just be the thing keeping you alive.
Lastly, in continuation of this column’s purpose of delving into queer archives to understand our present and future, I’m going to start at Boston’s History Project and their materials related to the Combahee River Collective.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the start of the Combahee River Collective, a Boston-based group of Black feminists who met regularly from 1974-1980 at the Cambridge Women’s Center. They are most well-known for the Combahee River Collective Statement published in 1977, and they were one of the first groups to document the intersectionality of Black women’s
We’re scared. I’m scared. And it feels near impossible to have hope for a future that might not be safe, especially for marginalized folks.
experiences. A cornerstone of Black lesbian feminist thinking.
“As Black feminists we are made constantly and painfully aware of how little effort white women have made to understand and combat their racism, which requires among other things that they have a more than superficial comprehension of race, color, and Black history and culture. Eliminating racism in the white women’s movement is by definition work for white women to do, but we will continue to speak to and demand accountability on this issue” (Combahee River Collective Statement, 1977).
The Combahee River Collective named themselves after Harriet Tubman who led a military campaign in 1863 across the Combahee River in South Carolina, an effort that freed over 750 slaves. The inherent legacy of connecting the present to both the past and the future. The statement was written out of a “need to develop a politics that was anti-racist, unlike those of white women, and antisexist, unlike those of Black and white men” (Combahee River Collective Statement, 1977). It states, “Contemporary Black feminism is the outgrowth of countless generations of personal sacrifice,
militancy, and work by our mothers and sisters.”
This quote is a nod to all of the women who came before the Combahee women, and it provides a context for this intergenerational thinking when it comes to how our hopes and dreams and decisions are not just ours. I think about what hope the women of Combahee River Collective might have for the future. What they were hoping for when they wrote that statement 50 years ago.
A present-day organization called Black Women Radicals held an event earlier this year called “50 Years of Combahee” where they followed up with Demita Frazier and Barbara Smith, two of the contributing writers of the Statement. They had a few things to say on what they are currently hoping for in the future and how that connects to the hopes they had in the past.
“I love that we wrote the statement,” said Demita. “I loved that I had an opportunity as a young person to find a political home that was meaningful where I could truly be fully present, not having to fight battles that had nothing to do with the real thing we were going for. So I’m extremely hopeful but I’m also very much of the present, what are we doing now, what’s happening right now, how does that thread connect to the past, how do we synthesize more of what we learned in that experience?”
Barbara added, “Everything I do, I do it with a Black feminist consciousness… black feminism is not a fashion statement, it is not a way of being cute in the world. Black feminism at its best is about digging underneath why there is so much Injustice, so much violence so much exploitation, so much imperialism, so much colonialism, still why all these things? So much warfare and trying to get to the bottom of those things and to deal with them in a multi-issue way…whatever the situations are that are the most pressing at the time, I hope that I can be somewhere near those. One of those is of course climate disaster and I’m sure Demita has a lot more to say
SAM continues on page 77
TESS continued from page 73
safe for me and resonated with readers. I learned to speak my truth and found the meaningful support that I longed for.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, scientists noticed something peculiar. Amidst all the devastation, Magnolia trees, which normally only flowered in Spring, were in full bloom in Autumn. Somehow, the trees were aware of the urgent need to germinate new trees in order to survive as a species or perhaps for some other secret, miraculous reason.
Like the Magnolias blossoming at the wrong time, it is more common for moms of stillborns to get pregnant again within the year. That fact didn’t make it feel any less miraculous that only 3 months after giving birth to my little Brynnie, I discovered that I was 6 weeks pregnant. I qualified as high-risk because of Brynn’s death, and I found an amazing team, a doctor and therapist who’d both been
personally impacted by infant loss. These were my people.
Noah James was born alive on December 27, 2010. It felt like the whole world was waiting for him.
I continued to blog for the next 4 years, through my next pregnancy with Noah. The following year I blogged through my separation and divorce. I blogged about struggling as a single parent, dating after divorce, and eventually about the transformation of faith that Brynn had brought me through.
Brynn has many lessons for me and I’m grateful that death does not stop her. I learned that detaching emotionally does not decrease pain. It’s so common to try to mask pain with anger, antidepressants, and alcohol. I’ve learned that the best and fastest way to relieve pain is by just letting pain hurt. You do get breaks, and eventually, the sting subsides. I’m not going to lie, it HURT so freakin’ bad. So bad. So bad that I entered a place in my mind that you can only get to through immense pain. The door that opens remains open, granting wisdom, gratitude for all that’s left, and strangely, confidence.
When I was deep in grief, nothing else bothered me.
I remember a friend relaying her extreme frustration dealing with her wifi provider, and as I listened, I could remember
getting that upset about things that weren’t dead babies but that time seemed like a faraway place. I had long been consumed with money worries. When Brynn died, money seemed like a ridiculous thing to care so much about. In grief, I was largely healed from generalized anxiety and people-pleasing tendencies. Brynn shook the tree. I lost some friendships and gained others that were better aligned with my transformation.
I am truly a happier person because of the perspective I’ve gained. I’m honestly grateful for the experience. Loving Brynn and experiencing the deepest sorrow both softened and bolstered me. I survived every mother’s greatest fear come true. And now I know I will survive it all until I don’t, and then it won’t matter. I still cry about losing her Earth-side. I’m freed from holding back my pain or my tears. I started to write Brynn letters. One night I remember writing to her and I felt her enter the room. I thought I was probably going mad and just wanted it so bad that I made myself believe it. Until Brynn died, I was unsure that people could communicate with the dead. I thought mediumship might be a scam. When Brynn died, the top of my head opened in direct connection with heaven. I moved closer to heaven, and heaven moved closer to me. The pain was still excruciating at times, but I began to feel lighter as I connected with Brynn’s spirit with more confidence. I eventually took mediumship classes, where I learned to fine-tune the skill of communicating with people who have passed. I feel a kinship with the dead.
She is my daughter. I talk to her, and she talks to me, in ways only I know. As one of my favorite bereavement cards that I received says: I was her angel. Now she’s mine.
Little Lady, my love for you is as boundless as your spirit is. Thank you for choosing me to be your mom.
SAM continued from page 75
about that than I do but we are both fully aware that that’s what’s happening with us here on planet Earth.”
Barbara continued, “Look at where you are geographically; look at where you live and figure out what’s happening with people who you say that you stand with and for, in other words, what’s happening with Black women who may not have the privileges that you have? we talked about educational privilege in the Combahee River Collective statement because we
didn’t really have class and economic privilege but we had the opportunity to get really great educations and we used those educations; we deployed them for, we hope, the betterment of humanity and our community”
There is an inherent privilege in despair-based paralysis—of not doing anything out of fear of how overwhelming and scary things are. Everyone is burnt out and exhausted, and it’s hard to see change happen. Inaction only continues
to perpetuate the harm, but hope is a verb. Hope seems like the only thing we have. I don’t know what hope looks like anymore, but I want to be hopeful again.
For more reflection on the impact of the Combahee River Collection, might I suggest the really engaging book “How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective” (2017, edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor).
Dannie Engwert is an artist, author, weaver, and maker of hand-made cards. The 5th edition of her book “Good Grief” is a collection of photos taken day after day for 75 days after the death of her husband. The first mandala was an accident. The following mandalas and the activity of creating them moved her feelings of sadness and brought about joy. The art of the mandala has long been associated with healing.
“I had a tall table in the kitchen and one morning I was sitting there and I started playing with the silverware because he’d been gone for a while he was buried exactly six months I just didn’t know what to do. We had sold our house in Indiana. I lived here in Massachusetts. My children are both in the Midwest. I don’t have any other family. So, I was playing with silverware at the table and I put it in the middle and the sun came through the window and kind of glimmered on it. That’s pretty cool. So then I got my new camera on my phone that I got for Christmas. And I got up on the chair and I took a picture. That’s pretty cool. Then I put it away. The next morning I thought I would make another one. And so I got the vegetables out. I kept doing that every morning. And one day I showed my friend and she said, Dannie, That’s probably why you’re smiling more. Because you’re busy. How many have you got? So I showed her, and eventually I had 75. And I put them in a little tiny book. But it was big, in fact.
In the newspaper, there was a call by University of Massachusetts
at Dartmouth for zines. I submitted it and they took it. I called recently and asked, “Is my zine still in your collection?” “We don’t know.” “Well, what do you think I would like to know. If it’s not there, I’ll take it back.” So she went and checked and she said, “Yes, it is in the collection. And it has been borrowed by classes four times for students.
And I thought maybe I might write a second book and use other people’s mandalas and other people’s ideas as well. But I haven’t gotten quite to that point. So those are my things. But that’s what got me, I think, through the grief. Every morning I had something to get up to do. I was playing with it and I was changing and thinking. Grief takes a long time. And there are some people who say you never get over it. Well. It’s my understanding. And I have a certificate in ontology which is about grief and dying. And I have an end-oflife doula certificate. You aren’t expected to get over it. The opposite of death is not life. The opposite of death is birth. Life is in the middle. And maybe life goes this way past death and then maybe that way. For a little while you feel such great emptiness. That’s usually what people call grief. The emptiness and the sorrow. But the greater your connection with the person, the
greater your loss will be, until you realize that that person isn’t you. And just because they’re gone doesn’t mean you’ve lost anything. And that’s very hard. But once you realize that, then you can enjoy them in a different place. Byron Katie says when a person dies think of them as being in another room. When someone dies, they don’t take anything away from you, they’re in another place and the memories stay with us.
Dannie Engwert is an artist, author, weaver, and maker of hand-made cards. The 5th edition of her book “Good Grief” is available now at The Drawing Room online at Anthif.com.
By Haley McShane
The sunset was her last memory of Garrett, her one and only love.
Maria Fernandez had grown up with very little, in South LA’s Florence neighborhood. She and her mother, Elena, lived in a one-bedroom apartment. Elena raised Maria without her father, Javier, who lived in the San Diego jail serving time for domestic abuse.
“I want you to get an education,” she always told Maria. “I never got one.”
Maria was more intelligent than everyone in her eighthgrade class, but the odds of going to college were against her. Elena worked two jobs, and her school did not offer advanced classes or the resources needed for college preparation. Most students were lucky if they survived freshman year without being sucked into gangs, drugs-even imprisonment.
But Maria could be found in the minimalist library; the book selection was so small she had already read each book at least twice. Maria knew the Dewey Decimal System better than the head librarian. Each time Maria sat down on the shaggy brown carpet to read, it felt like home.
The community board in the library posted announcements like the occasional read-aloud for toddlers and blood donation dates. But that day, there was a blue notice in the corner, advertising a full scholarship to Crossroads School for the Arts and Sciences through a Tuition Reduction Fund Program.
It was Maria’s dream to attend a school like Crossroads. The school was known for its special approach to each student’s learning experience. The school catered to helping students reach their full potential in all areas of personal development while preparing them for the real world.
Maria ran home to tell Elena.
“Mom! There’s a full scholarship to Crossroads I found on the bulletin board at the library! Look, look! To qualify, applicants must have a GPA of 3.5, meet the family income level, and attend Los Angeles public schools. Do I fit all those requirements, Mom?” Maria asked with a smile. Her eyes shone with a brightness that Elena had never seen.
“Yes, you do! Why not give it a go?” asked Elena.
The next day, Maria used the one computer her library had to apply for the scholarship. It may have taken over an hour to load, it was so old. She clicked “submit” when the library closed at eight o’clock.
Four weeks later, Maria checked the mail to learn she had gotten into Crossroads with the help of the new Tuition Reduction Program. Maria was also offered a position in the New Student Orientation Program, where
mentors helped new students adjust during their freshman year. New students shadowed their mentors through classes, extracurricular activities, and weekly counseling sessions.
“I’m so proud of you, Maria. This is the answer to my prayers for the education you’ve always deserved,” Elena said. She hugged Maria with tears running down her face.
“Mom, are you alright?” Maria asked hesitantly. She had not seen her mother cry in years.
“Yes, I’m just so happy for you. That’s all.”
Maria and Elena hugged for what seemed like a very long time, enjoying the dream of what lay ahead.
That fall, Maria began NSOP and developed a friendship with a sophomore named Ben. He was a kind, intelligent student who enjoyed reading. He introduced her to her teachers, showed her around the school, and counseled her at their weekly sessions. By the middle of the semester, Maria was excelling in school. Her teachers were astounded by her drive to succeed. Some teachers had secretly nicknamed her “the driver” when they spoke of her.
“How are your classes going, Maria?” Ben asked during one of their counseling check-ins.
“Well, my classes are going great. And, I have all As so far this semester,” Maria replied. She glanced down apprehensively and began twiddling her thumbs, a nervous habit she had developed as a child. Ben could sense something was wrong.
“Is there anything else you want to discuss?” he asked.
“Um, I have to tell you the truth, Ben. You’re the only friend I’ve made here. Everyone comes from such a different world. I feel so alone and different.”
Ben could sense Maria’s uneasiness around other students. Maria was shy and kept to herself. She needed a way to connect to her classmates. He had an idea.
“Have you thought about joining the English club? It’s all about meeting other kids who like reading and talking about literature. There are presentations, movies, and parties all surrounding the subject of English. I’m in it, and we have so much fun. I think you’d like it a lot,” said Ben.
Maria was not sure she wanted to risk trying something new. She would not know anyone. Elena had been encouraging Maria to join a club and make friends. She trusted her mother’s word more than anything, so she took a chance.
“Ok, when’s the next meeting?” Maria asked. The members would be watching the first movie adaptation ever of Romeo and Juliet. It was called Romeo and Juliet, A Romantic Story of the Ancient Feud Between the Italian Houses of Montague and Capulet. Ben described the century-old graphics from 1908 to Maria. As a lifelong lover of old movies, she simply could not resist.
“What if nobody likes me?” Maria questioned Ben on the way to the meeting. Maria was thinking of changing her mind at the last second.
“Of course they’ll like you. Why don’t you sit with me and my friend Garrett? He always brings the best popcorn. Don’t worry, he’s a really good guy. Smart and friendly, kind of like you!” Ben poked Maria, and she blushed.
Maria and Ben got there early. Students were preparing the room for the meeting. One sophomore girl was pulling out the movie, while two senior boys rearranged the blue, metal chairs so everyone could see. The desks were pushed aside as students filed into the large classroom. Maria’s heart was beating hard with excitement. Ben introduced Maria to the club president, treasurer, and secretary. Students began filing into the classroom. Maria recognized certain faces, while others were unfamiliar. Ben and Maria settled into their seats in the front.
That was when Maria saw Garrett for the first time. He was tall, about six feet two inches. He had short brown hair and a freckled face. Garrett wore jeans and a green sweater that emphasized his lean physique. His warm smile made Garrett a people magnet. Several girls were talking to him. Maria could tell he was confident and thought he probably never had a problem with dating.
“Hey, Garrett! This is Maria Fernandez. She’s my friend from NSOP. Remember I was telling you about her?” Ben said. Ben had described to Garrett Maria’s family situation and the struggles Maria had been through.
“Yeah! It’s nice to meet you, Maria,” said Garrett. He locked eyes with this girl he had never met. Immediately, Garrett felt something jump inside his heart that he had not felt before. Struck by the story her eyes told, he knew Maria was not like the other girls he had dated at Crossroads.
“Nice to meet you, too,” Maria whispered. Garrett towered over Maria, but his easygoing nature kept her calm. Like Garrett, she could not put her finger on what made him so attractive. The only thing she could think of was that his tone of voice was not arrogant and loud like other kids at school. He spoke calmly and slowly, like soft notes of a ballad. She shook hands with him, and they sat next to each other.
“Want some popcorn?” Garrett offered Ben and Maria.
“Sure!” they answered at the same time. They laughed and shared a few handfuls of buttery popcorn.
“I just remembered I have to help the club secretary with the last meeting’s notes,” said Ben, standing to
leave. He was out of sight before Maria could ask him to stay. She did not know what to say to Garrett.
“So, have you ever seen this version of Romeo and Juliet?” Garrett asked.
Maria cleared her throat. “No, but Ben said it was really good.”
“Yeah, we watched it last year. Everyone liked it a lot, so we voted to watch it again. The movie is so old that it almost creates a fairy tale effect to the already devastating plot,” Garrett commented.
Maria was shocked by how in tune Garrett was with literature and theater. The way he spoke of the legendary play made him seem much older than he was--a high school junior. She had not met anyone so passionate about the art of storytelling, not even Ben.
“I love fairy tales. Maybe-that’s why I have a lovehate relationship with the play,” Maria sighed.
“What do you mean, love-hate relationship?” questioned Garrett. His eyebrows rose. “As a kid, I loved fairy tales and the idea of ‘happily ever after.’ My mom used to read Cinderella and Snow White to me every night. I was amazed at how perfect everything seemed to end. Even when I was small, though, I knew life wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like that for me, at least,” explained Maria. She paused, reflecting on her difficult upbringing. “So, at the same time that I hate that the story ends badly, its fairy tale love story reminds me of the ones I read as a little girl. The magic of ‘happily ever after’ is sprinkled over every part of the play; somehow things don’t work out, though.” Embarrassed by her rambling, she stopped speaking and expected Garrett to leave the conversation. Yet, he did the exact opposite.
“Huh,” he muttered, reflecting on the hints Maria gave of her challenging childhood. “I never thought about it that way. It definitely does toss around the theme of ‘happily ever after’ a lot. Maybe, when there isn’t much ‘happily ever after’ in sight, the idea of fairy tales and happiness can seem farther away.”
Garrett realized his insight into hope was different from Maria’s. He had grown up with endless opportunities, which caused him to feel optimistic about most things. But life had handed Maria a whole different set of cards. It was light years away from his experience.
“Yeah, maybe...” Maria trailed off.
Before either of them could say anything else, Ben returned.
“Hey, sorry I was gone so long. Pass the popcorn!”
Though Maria and Garrett enjoyed the old movie,
AMOMENT
neither thought about it while watching what was onscreen. They both thought about each other and how the facts of their lives would not stop them from reaching out to one another. Garrett and Maria’s similarities seemed to outshine all of that.
After their first meeting, Garrett and Maria spent every waking moment together. They discussed their favorite books, did their English homework together, and stayed at Crossroads Library until it closed every night. Every Wednesday, they attended English club meetings together. They participated in the annual Christmas fundraiser for delivering books to needy children. Then, in January, the club took a field trip to visit the Hollywood Sign, a landmark that served as the backdrop of many awardwinning movies. Maria’s favorite part of being in the club was when they picked out their favorite passages from Shakespeare plays and explained why they liked them.
Over the next several months, Garrett and Maria’s relationship blossomed into more than a friendship. They connected on many different levels. It was a magical love neither of them had experienced before. In late February, Garrett asked Maria to be his girlfriend. She was thrilled.
“Why do you like him so much, Maria?” asked Elena one spring day.
“I don’t know, Mom. I just get butterflies when I think about him,” Maria confessed. She blushed and danced happily to her room. Elena was over the moon for Maria, but she did not want her to get hurt.
By April, Garrett introduced Maria to his parents, Jane and Michael. They were delighted to meet their son’s girlfriend. Maria instantly charmed them with her kindness and intelligence. Garrett’s parents recognized a distinct change in him. It was almost as if Maria had lit a fire in Garrett’s heart that was always there and was just waiting for the right person to ignite it.
****
In January, Michael had celebrated twenty years as an attorney for the US military. After two decades of loyal service, Michael was an esteemed professional of the armed forces.
Since he began working for the US military, Garrett’s father was stationed in California. He had never worked anywhere else. However, one early February morning, Michael received an unexpected call from his supervisor Andy.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Michael. But, we’re moving you to the Arizona base. We need you to fill a position there. One of the attorneys just left, and we need a veteran like you to take over,” Andy said disappointingly. He ran his hand through his hair, anxious for Michael’s response.
“What do you mean, Andy? I’ve worked in California since my first day in this organization! I’ve built my life
fiction poetry essay
here. This is the only home Jane and Garrett have ever known!” Michael yelled, clutching the reciever with both hands. He tried to calm himself by focusing on his breathing.
Andy replied sadly,“I’m sorry, Michael. I really am. But, the decision has been made. You start in June.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Michael caught his breath and cleared his throat.
“Okay, Andy,” Michael said, before hanging up.
That night, Michael told his family about their impending move. Jane and Garrett were both surprised and upset. They did not want to pack up and re-start their lives in a foreign place.
“What do you mean, Dad? We’ve lived here my whole life! I’m not going!” exclaimed Garrett, slamming his fists on the table.
“Michael, is there any way around this? I can’t believe... “Jane sputtered, lost in thought. California is our only home. I just can’t.”
Michael leaned over, putting his head in his hands. Then, he stood up from the sofa he was sitting on. He spoke quietly, resigned to his family’s fate.
“I don’t have a choice. This is out of my control. I have to go where they place me. We leave in June.”
Michael walked out of the room, leaving his son and wife speechless. They looked at one another with a sadness neither of them had ever known. *******
Garrett could not bring himself to tell Maria about the move. He tried, but each time, he could not utter the words.
Garrett needed more time with Maria, more time to pretend that his future was not going to happen. He knew it was unfair to Maria, to lie to her like this. But, he promised himself he would tell her in April.
That spring, Garrett and Maria enjoyed their English club meetings, discussing centuries-old literature and watching classic movies. When they wandered around campus, the California sun warmed their faces. Maria’s love for Garrett grew by the day, while his heart broke into a thousand pieces.
After one of their meetings in April, Garrett and Maria walked to their favorite bench. It was wooden and made a creaking sound when they sat on it. They sat there often, reading books in comfortable silence.
Garrett cleared his throat.
“I’m so sorry, Maria. In June, my family and I are moving to Arizona. My dad’s an attorney for the military, and they’re moving him to Arizona. There’s nothing I can do to change it,” Garrett whispered, looking at his feet.
“What? How? I don’t understand! Did he just tell you?”
Maria asked, her voice rising and eyes widening.
“No, he told us in February. I tried so may times to tell you, but I just couldn’t. It was too hard, too painful,” Garrett replied apologetically. He stared into her eyes.
“I wish you told me sooner,” Maria said, “but honestly, I would’ve done the same thing if I was you.” She looked away, tears brimming in her eyes. She took a deep breath and looked at Garrett again.
“How are we going to be able to make this work? Texting? Calling? Zoom, maybe?” asked Maria. A million thoughts were running through her mind. She did not want to lose Garrett, the first boy she ever loved.
Garrett stared down at his hands. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“Long distance relationships never work, Maria. I think we should end it here and now,” said Garrett.
Maria wanted to make it work. She was willing to do whatever it took. But, she did not wish to force Garrett. Maybe, he was right. Maybe, long-distance relationships just exist in the movies, not in real life. “Okay. I guess this is goodbye, then. Will you at least say goodbye to me before you leave this summer?” Her eyes filled again with tears, but she held them back.
“Of course. I’m sorry, Maria,” Garrett said softly. They hugged and went their separate ways.
Between April and June, Garrett and Maria agreed to avoid speaking to each other because it would make their goodbye much harder. They both skipped the weekly meetings of the English club and focused on their studies as much as possible. Garrett could not imagine life without her. Maria could not see the rest of her high school career being anything without Garrett.
On a hot summer day, they met at Garrett’s house to say goodbye. The house was sold, and the moving trucks were packed. Garrett stepped aside under his favorite palm tree in the corner of his former home. Holding her hands, he spoke softly, careful not to break his voice. He wanted to be strong for Maria.
“Do you remember the first time we met, when we watched the Romeo and Juliet movie?” asked Garrett.
“Yeah, I do. That was my favorite meeting the English club had this year,” answered Maria.
She recalled the moments before the movie when she and Garrett spoke of how they felt about the play.
“You and I are kind of like star-crossed lovers, once you think about it. Me, getting the chance to attend Crossroads and meet you. But, it’s ending. There’s no happily ever after, just like Romeo and Juliet. Fate took over their world and ours. Maybe, it’s a sign that we’ll meet each other somewhere in the future,” wondered Maria.
She hated that her story had to end this way. Those nights of reading fairy tales as a young girl flashed into her mind. She wished she could go back in time, and tell
herself that it’s not worth reading fantasies because, in the end, it made her feel even more sad that her childhood dreams would never come true.
“I don’t know,” murmured Garrett. He could not stand to look into Maria’s brown eyes much longer. The pain was too much to bear. Slowly, he kissed her and let her hand go. “Goodbye,” Maria cried. She took one last look at her first love.
Garrett climbed into the car and waved. He and his parents drove off as the sun was setting. Garrett did not know it, but Maria memorized every detail of their goodbye so she would never forget her last memory of him.
Garrett only made a few friends in his new school. Maria did not adjust to Garrett’s absence well. She quit the English Club her sophomore year because it reminded her too much of Garrett.
When Maria became a junior at Crossroads, she finally realized she had to move on. Life continued, even though their love did not. Eventually, Maria returned to the English club after Ben’s constant nagging to rejoin. Slowly, Maria reconnected with friends and began to smile more.
Garrett began college at UCLA. He missed the beaches of Los Angeles and wanted to return to his home state. He promised himself he would not search for Maria because his heart had not healed from their breakup two years before. UCLA’s English program was among the best in the country. He majored in English Literature and Marketing.
To build connections at UCLA, he became involved with the student senate and immediately met many people. Akin to his friends at Crossroads, people at UCLA were attracted to his kindness and honest desire to help make the school a better place. Garrett built more confidence when he was involved in school activities. It was almost as if he subconsciously understood that his relationship with Maria was truly over.
Reality had finally settled in, and he had to move forward to continue his life. It was sad but true.
At Crossroads, Maria was preparing to look at colleges. She was exhilarated that her dream of attending college would be real. Her guidance counselor guaranteed she could get into any California state school of her choice due to her 4.0 GPA. The state of California would grant her a full scholarship, much like she did at Crossroads. It was simply a matter of visiting schools to select the one she liked best.
Ultimately, Maria was torn between UCLA and Humboldt State University in northern California. Part of her wanted to stay close to home to visit Elena often. On the other hand, she wanted to escape the hole that Los Angeles and Crossroads put in her heart. She wanted to start anew in a place she had never been. Maybe Humboldt would be the answer, she wondered.
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Because of its proximity, Maria decided to visit UCLA first. The tour was unbelievable. She was in awe of the size of the school library. It seemed to have every book ever published! All of the professors were intelligent and experienced. Students from all backgrounds participated in extracurricular activities, and others studied near the Bruins Bears mascot statue. Instantly, Maria could see herself studying there.
As Maria daydreamed about life on campus, she saw someone in the corner of the cafeteria who resembled Garrett. He was taller, about six feet four inches, with slight stubble on his chin. This man’s hair was longer than Garrett’s, and some covered his forehead. But, Maria locked eyes with this man. Time seemed to stop, and she dropped her purse.
It couldn’t be, could it? Maria wondered.
It was Garrett. He was not the boy Maria had dated in high school; he was a young man. Garrett could not speak. Just like Maria, he could not believe his eyes. Garrett focused and took a second glance at the girl who resembled Maria. It’s her. I know it is, but this can’t be happening. Am I seeing things? he thought.
They both walked toward each other. Garrett’s emotions got the best of him when all of the pain that had built up inside his heart suddenly burst out. He held Maria’s hands and mouthed her name.
“Yeah, it’s me. Fate led us back to each other. I think it is ‘happily ever after’ for us, Garrett.”
He did not know what to say, cradling Maria in his arms. Maria patted his back. After a moment, Garrett spoke.
“I’ve missed you, Maria,” Garrett said.
“I couldn’t believe you were ever gone. I carried on, but in the back of my mind, the hope of reconnection remained,” confessed Maria.
“Same here. Just going through the motions, but I wasn’t really ever alive without you.” Garrett reflected on the way he had managed without Maria in his life. It was unbelievable he had gone so long without her.
“It is happily ever after for us. I can’t believe you’re here!” exclaimed Garrett.
“Well, believe it, Romeo, because I’m staying,” declared Maria.
“Whatever you say, Juliet,” Garrett agreed. He smiled widely, holding Maria’s hand for a very long time.
Haley McShane is a freelance writer, poet, and short story author. Her work has been featured in print and online publications both domestically and internationally. Haley lives in Massachusetts.
Ihave a confession.
Allegedly, I have been known to pull over on the side of the road to pluck an errant whisker on my chin if it makes itself known to me.
Allegedly.
Here’s the thing: is there anything else on this planet that is literally nonexistent one second and then suddenly appears and becomes the most vexing thing in the world that drives you to complete distraction? It’s as if I. Can. Not. Focus on anything else until I have eradicated the intruder (including driving).
And here’s the kicker: the moment I solve for one of these plucky suckers, there’s another one that rears its ugly head the very next moment…day, week, month. It’s like playing Whisker Whaca-Mole.
Look, I know I’m not alone. I see women secretly pulling out their coveted Tweezermans in all types of environments: weddings, business meetings, while bingeing Netflix. It matters not; the only thing that does matter is that we get the little bugger right then and there. And, don’t even get me started if we are presenting full profile in full sunlight. UGH.
But this is not where my confession ends. I have also been known to celebrate, out loud, with a walloping “Wahoo!!” when I actually complete my mission. There’s an ultimate sense of gratification when “tweezers conquer hair.” (Think, Rock, Paper, Scissors: Scissors cuts paper every time. And wins.)
Kim is on Instagram @kimmilesinheels Visit MilesInHeels.com.
*Sigh. I realize this is just one more of those “things” that women of a certain age have to battle. But that list is just a tad too long for my liking. I mean, it seems a bit unfair that not only do we have to become facial hair aficionados, but we’re also in constant conflict with:
Sweaty and Sucky Sleep
Wicked Waistlines
A Multitude of Moods
Foggy Forgetfulness
Sadly, there aren’t enough pages in the magazine to list all the matters of contention.
On the flip side, whenever I become overwhelmed by this ever-growing list, I remind myself that there are lots of really wonderful things that also come along with being a woman of a certain age. For example, I’m a proud (occasional) member of the “I Have No More F*cks To Give” club. I was initiated about three years ago, and my membership status was recently upgraded to the “‘No’ Is One Of My New Favorite Words” club. Make no mistake; these are two very elite clubs and membership is a privilege. (Please note: I believe there’s a prerequisite of membership to the “I Am Really Concerned What Others Are Going To Think” club or its sister organization, “I Say ‘Yes’ To Everything For Fear Of What Others Are Going To Think” club before one can graduate.)
Membership to these elite clubs does, indeed, have its advantages. Let’s say you’re invited to a party for someone
you really like but with whom you aren’t all that close. You notice on the invitation that the party starts at 9:00 p.m. [Insert audible gasp here] Initially, you play that all too familiar game with yourself: “Ugh, if I don’t go, will she be mad at me?” or “I was really looking forward to some downtime after this super stressful week, and that was my only free evening.”
When you’re a proud member of the “New Favorite Word” club, you’re sound in your decision to opt for a “ME” evening, complete with collagen facemask, margaritas, M&M’s, and the last couple of episodes of The Perfect Couple on Netflix. (Too specific? Did I give myself away with the mention of margaritas and M&M’s?)
I have to say, I feel a lot better now that I’ve come clean with my confession. It feels great to share, so thanks for listening. In the spirit of sisterhood, if you need a pal to whom you’d like to confess/chat/complain, hit me up. I’d be happy to swap tips on how I manage to actually get some sleep or show you my favorite pair of tweezers. (Yes, you read that correctly; I play favorites with my tweezers.)
I’ll leave you with this…I’m not lamenting getting older. I fully understand that it’s a privilege denied to many. I intend to make the very most of however many trips around the sun I have left. Who knows? I might even invest in Tweezerman stock. I think I’ll do that right after I pull the car over and find this pesky little…wait, what was I writing about again?
“Mareth has always been in our corner, supporting our needs. She’s remarkable, really. I think the world of her and the whole EI team, and I can’t say enough great things about them. The tools they’ve provided have been invaluable, and we still use them today. They coached Leah and Nora and taught us as parents how to empower our children. Today, the girls are doing so incredibly well.” – Emily, mom
The Arc’s First Early Intervention (EI) program has provided care to Emily’s family since they moved to Hingham shortly before the COVID pandemic. Initially, the EI team worked with Leah, now 7, and today we work with her younger sister, Nora, 2.
“Leah had delays in her gross motor skills, and when staff came over to see her, they were always so warm and engaging. They’d be on the ground, playing with her, working with her one on one. Having services in our home made life so much easier. It takes away the stress of traveling to appointments, and I can observe the techniques used during the sessions and replicate them later.” – Emily, mom
Today, Leah is 7 and about to go into 2nd grade. She attends gymnastics camp and is an active girl who loves to run and play. And now, she’s supporting her young sister, Nora, as she too works with EI.
“Nora is so bright and smart and has so much to share with the world, but she struggles to communicate. She’s a delayed speaker, and it can be so frustrating for her. She has worked so hard with her therapists. It’s difficult, but the progress she’s made is profound. The team is enabling her to go out into the world and have a social circle and communicate with her peers. It’s just amazing to see.”
– Emily, mom
Each day, the EI program works with approximately 550 children ages 0-3 and their families in Braintree, Cohasset, Hingham, Hull, Norwell, Scituate, and Weymouth. Do you have concerns about your child’s development? If so, visit www.arcsouthshore.org to learn more about our EI program and submit a referral to our team.
Job searching? We’re hiring! By joining our team, you’ll become part of a diverse and committed workforce that provides help, hope, and opportunity to children and their families. We’re hiring for Development Specialists, Physical Therapists, Licensed Social Workers or Licensed Mental Health Clinicians, Occupational Therapists, and Speech Language Pathologists. Sign on bonuses up to $2,000 are available!
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