Another milestone tackled by my eight year old just now. For the first time ever (not for lack of trying), he opened the door to our home all by himself. WOOT! He is very proud of himself. I am proud of him, too.
Not my actual keys, so don’t be thinking you’re clever and try and make a 3D repro of these bad boys.
It might seem crazy, but I recognize each and every one of my kids’ milestones. When one of your children is no longer with you, it’s hard to take anything for granted. So, yes, today it was unlocking the door all by himself. That’s pretty dang cool. Better yet, it was earned. The boy has been trying to turn the keys properly for a few months now. They stick a bit and you have to jiggle them just so to unlock the door. Most every attempt has ended in a cloud of loud frustration.
But not today, Satan, not today.
I love seeing my children succeed, conquer, grow up. The little guy is still working on that toilet beast, but he’ll get there (hopefully before September when his preschool has made it clear he must). These little stepping stones, placed on top of one another, grow higher and higher and higher until someday, when I am old and gray, no doubt, these boys will fly the coop.
It’s hard to imagine it, because my first thought watching my boy’s joy when the key finally turned in his hand was way, way back in the memory files. My Mom went to work when I was in second grade, the age my kiddo is now. My brother and I went to different schools that year and I got home earlier than he did. I was one of those often talked about and dithered over “latchkey” kiddos. And, just to prove the stereotype right, I wore my key on a red and yellow lanyard around my neck. I tried to hide it under my Peter Pan-collared uniform blouse, as I felt shame that my Mom worked. The 70s were no joke, my young Millennial friends.
I always had a hard time opening the lock to my childhood home, too. My neighbor, an older boy, would very kindly unlock the door for me. It was a proud day for me, too, like my son, when I could open that sucker independently.
The older I get, the more time toys with me. I think about it a lot these days. How I was just an eight year old girl a few weeks ago and how I will have just crossed the 60 year old threshold when my youngest boy graduates from high school. I mean, come on, time is one crazy son of a gun.
But today is today, and my son is eight, and he just cracked another code on the rode to independence. Someday, simultaneously soon and far, far away, may he remember this day himself, as his own child unlocks that first lock.
Being a 47 year old American woman means that I grew up watching Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter style. That gal flew around in her invisible airplane and lassoed up all the bad guys and villains in her path. She was a bicentennial bitch of the highest order, badass and gorgeous, resplendent in her red, white, and blue.
When you are a five and six and seven and eight year old girl and turn on the teevee every week to watch shows with women kicking ass and taking names, well, it’s safe to assume where my feminist beliefs had their roots.
Charlie’s Angels and the Bionic Woman and Mary Tyler Moore and yes, Wonder Woman all represented to me that women were perfectly capable of keeping the world safe and good and informed and gorgeous, too.
As an adult now, and a mom, it isn’t lost on me that none of these gals had children. They were not mothers. They were too busy saving the world, carving out a career, feathering their hair, and fighting crime to change diapers or worry about what’s for dinner. Huh. I never made that connection until just this moment, but I wonder if that’s what contributed to me not ever really being interested in child rearing or motherhood when I imagined myself as a grown up.
When I was a girl, 27 was always my ideal age. The adult version of myself would be living in a high rise, something sleek that required an elevator, with sliding doors and a balcony. I would wear my slacks tucked into knee high boots, even in the summer, because I would be cool. Independent AF.
A man was never really on my radar. The imaginary me was always alone, arriving home after a long and satisfying day at work. Sometimes I was a flight attendant, sometimes a magazine editor, sometimes an advertising executive. A career was a necessity in my idealized adulthood, but that career was flexible and open to possibilities.
As I hit rewind in my memories and think back to those things that influenced me, shaped my sense of what it was to be a woman, I am struck by the accessibility of strong female role models in pop culture. In the mid-1970s, the glass ceiling was getting close to showing some cracks, but it was still a solid double-paned barrier. These teevee characters, strong and capable, were a whisper of what was to be for women.
I wonder if it was watching these shows, seeing women perform and excel, that led me to ask the priest at my Catholic school why girls could not be altar boys. “Tradition,” he said, before changing the subject. Even at such a young age, I knew his answer was weak.
It never occurred to me that a woman was not capable of running a business or a country, let alone a fictional detective agency or a newsroom. Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher were part of my consciousness, even at a young age. Being strong and being a woman were not mutually exclusive. Being a leader and having breasts and a vagina were not mutually exclusive. Confidence and skill and a voice were as feminine as halters and strappy sandals and lip gloss.
When I think about my childhood, I feel grateful for the era in which I was raised. It’s easy to over-romanticize, of course, but as a white girl in the 1970s, I got to see powerful representations of what was possible for myself just by turning on the teevee. And every week I got the message that I could be strong, independent, beautiful, smart, talented, respected, honorable, and essential.
Those are some important messages for a young girl. Hell, those are some important messages for a middle aged mom.
Today is a day we set aside to honor and remember those who have died in service to this country of ours, our beautiful and deeply flawed America. I don’t really think of myself as coming from a military family, but just a moment’s reflection proves me wrong. My Dad served in the Army. My nephew recently served in Afghanistan with the Marines. Two uncles and a cousin were naval officers, another uncle a sailor. And a couple of cousins proudly served in the Air Force.
None of my relatives have died in service, which are those folks we honor today. We have been lucky when others have not.
Driving through the small town of Cary to visit our daughter’s grave this afternoon, we passed a field of flags, flapping in the wind. It was a beautiful sight, honestly, reminding me of the significance this day holds for so many other grieving mothers. I made a mental note as we passed, that perhaps we could spend a few moments there on our return trip home, introduce our boys to the significance of the day.
What a glorious day it was. Warm, bright, crisp light, big puffy clouds. My heart felt full, both from being with our girl, and seeing that rolling field of flags, dancing in the wind. I have some fairly complicated feelings about America these days, but seeing those flags didn’t feel complicated at all.
Walking in between the rows, I noticed that each flag had a tag. When you turned it around, it carried a name, age, hometown, branch of service, and date of death. That peaceful field of flags instantly became more potent to me. I should have realized, of course, that an installation of flags on Memorial Day would honor those who have died, but something about seeing the names and ages of so many young men was visceral.
Their dates of death were not so long ago — 2008, 2009, 2010. All of these young men from Illinois towns like Skokie, Crystal Lake, West Chicago, Effingham. You look at a tag, then look up to see this sea of flags, each with their own tag, their own soldier or Marine, their own date of death, their own sorrow.
I noticed a man walking through the rows, looking at the tags, photographing some of them. We criss-crossed a couple of times until we were on the same row, me just a flag ahead of him. I stepped aside so he could pass me, and he apologized, saying he would get out of my way. We smiled.
As we walked along, I think I said something about the tags. The man told me that he was taking photos of the soldiers he knew. Ouch. He went on to say that he was a biker and volunteered to meet and handle the caskets when they are flown in to the local airport, be with the families as their sons, husbands, fathers, brothers, return home in a casket.
I paused, listening, and my eyes welled up. The man paused too, his eyes welled up, and he said, “I’m a biker and we give hugs. Can I give you a hug?” Yes, please, kind stranger. I thanked him for being there for these men and their families in that way. Not everyone could do that. He told me his friends called him “Matter.” I heard “Madder,” which kind of made sense, for a biker who honors lost soldiers, but he kindly corrected me.
Matter, patriot and biker. Volunteers with the Veterans Network Committee of Northern Illinois.
In just a few minutes, Matter and I connected. I shared that as a young woman I had trained at Chicago’s VA hospital, in their PTSD Clinic, listening to stories of Vietnam veterans who survived, but were deeply troubled, that woke me up and humbled me. While I don’t connect frequently with military culture, I maintain a deep respect for what men and women in the military provide, their service and sacrifice.
Matter told me a little bit more about his volunteering and the flags themselves. They are raised in the spot every Memorial Day, as a remembrance of those veterans killed in the “War on Global Terrorism” as he called it, and honor the 300+ Illinois soldiers and Marines who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Matter told me that five have been added this year.
“Did you know that soldiers who die in service die twice?,” Matter asked. “They die once on the field, but they die a second time when people stop saying their name. That’s why we’re here, why we do this.” He went on to tell me that every hour, the names of the dead are read and a bell is rung for each veteran.
I know how important it is to keep saying the name of those who go before us. Feeling close to him, I shared with Matter that we had just visited the grave of our girl, that I know the importance of saying the names, and offered up Donna’s name. He said it back to me and we shared another tear and another hug.
Tonight I feel grateful for folks like Matter. And I can’t tell you how good it felt to connect with another American who very possibly embraces politics that are different from my own, but has shared values and humanity.
Matter showed me what matters this Memorial Day.
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The group that Matter volunteers with is the Veterans Network Committee of Northern Illinois. You can visit their website or donate to their efforts to bring “vintage veterans” to Washington, D.C. HERE.
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Addendum: Matter reached out to me after this was published to clarify that he was not a veteran himself, as I had written. All apologies on my behalf to Matter — I made an assumption. He calls himself a patriot and works to improve the lives of veterans and their families.
Mary Tyler Mom 