Category: Retrospectives

Tick tock, tick tock, folks.  Christmas, that most stressful/joyful of holidays, is only a week away.  Hop to it, am I right?

Not me.

I get reflective this time of year.  Things are winding down, a new year is about to begin, another year is ending.  I miss the people I love who have died.  I think a lot about all the years that have passed, all the Christmases that have come and gone.

As a parent now, I am the one responsible for helping my sons make their first Christmas memories.  I want them to be happy memories, joyful memories, loving memories.  So, I do what I can, suck up my grief and sadness, and get about the work of “making memories.”

For me it is work, always has been.  Along the continuum of Scrooge and Merry Martha Stewart, I fall somewhere left of center, inching dangerously towards Scrooge.  But I try.  I do.  And the trying helps.  It’s best for my kids and, no doubt, I could try even harder and it would be even better for them. Sigh.

This year, I find myself thinking a lot about my Donnas — my Mom and my daughter, both buried now, dead from brain tumors that took them too soon.  I think about my childhood Christmases and my eyes well up on an almost daily basis right now.  Water works, folks.

One thing that helps when I feel sad and weepy is just to embrace it.  Wallow a bit.  Feel all the feelings.  So here they are, a few of my memory snapshots that have me weeping this year.

• I remember the potent smell of dust and must as I stood behind the heavy draperies in my childhood dining room looking out the windows up at the night sky on Christmas Eve, scanning for Rudolph’s bright red light, guiding Santa to our home.
• I remember the Christmas I had chicken pox and spent the whole holiday in pajamas, separated from my brothers, sisters and cousins.
• I remember Midnight Mass and how very crowded the parking lot was and walking into church up way past my bedtime and my breath, visible in the cold, stretching out in front of me.
• I remember the year I proudly wore burgandy colored knickers, Calvin Klein brand, bought in a flight of indulgence on my Dad’s part, after telling me about the knickers he wore as a boy.
• I remember how incredibly stressed and short my Mom would be trying to corral all us kids to clean up our holiday loot before the guests arrived and how all that stress and shortness just disappeared as soon as the door bell rang.
• I remember being the youngest of four kids all piled in my parent’s dark bedroom on Christmas Eve, feigning sleep, anxiously waiting for Santa to arrive.  The doorbell would sound five, six, seven times, my Dad’s voice would boom out, “HO, HO, HO!  Merry Christmas!”  A few moments later we were allowed to run down the stairs to a living room full of Mom, Dad, Grandma, and our two nuns/aunts, settled around the sofa and the tree surrounded with wrapped gifts.  In just a few minutes the gold carpeting would be littered with scraps of gift wrap and smiling faces.
• I remember licking the homemade crochet bell ornaments made by my Baba (Croatian grandmother).  They tasted like sugar, year after year, as she had dipped them in sugar water to help the fibers harden.
• I remember the sound of the tea kettle, calling us all to the kitchen table on Christmas Eve, sandwiched between our gift opening and our Midnight Mass sojourn, for cookies and cheer.
• I remember the artificial tree, well past its prime, that challenged anyone who tried to construct it, just one more year.  I remember the toy blocks, red and blue squares, that we had to nudge in between the tree and the silver screws that barely did the job they were charged to do — keep the tree from falling over.
• I remember Baby That-a-Way and Tiffany Taylor — both Christmas gifts and the only dolls I ever played with my whole childhood.
• I remember being at a Knights of Columbus Christmas party and entering the whistling contest.  We had to eat a number of saltines and then whistle into Santa’s ear.  The first one to whistle won a prize.  That poor Santa’s ears were flooded with half chewed saltine globs, mine included.  Poor, poor Santa.

I could go on, but I won’t.  My own tree still needs trimming, my boy is home sick with a cough and headache, and very soon, the baby will need a bottle.  I’m the Mom now, not the kid, despite still feeling like a kid myself.  There are some memories that need making and as hard as it is, I want those memories to be sweet ones.

Love to you as this Christmas countdown continues.  Feel free to share your own Christmas snap shots.  I will read them tonight over cocoa.

When President John F. Kennedy was killed, 50 years ago today, I was not even a glint in my parents’ eyes.  They were sleep deprived after having delivered their second child, my sister, just two weeks earlier.  I was still six years away.  So why on earth is this day so significant to me?

I can sum it up pretty easily for you — my family is Irish Catholic and we come from the South Side of Chicago.  The Kennedys are our royals, the First Family of Irish and Catholics and corruption.  Our local version of the Kennedys are the Daleys, and well, suffice it to say that my first son’s middle name is Daley.  These Irish Catholic political dynasties, now a dying breed, were something I grew up with and was always profoundly proud to be a part of, even on the periphery.

So, yes, today I have Kennedy on my mind.  I have spent hours Googling images of that fateful day fifty years ago and listening to the most amazing memories on NPR.  Leave it to the BBC to have the best coverage this afternoon.  It included first person interviews with Secret Service agent Clint Hill, who is the man who climbed on the trunk of the Presidential motorcade as Jackie was climbing out of the back seat.  It included 93 year old retired Dallas police officer Jim Leavelle who arrested Lee Harvey Oswald and was handcuffed to him when he died.  It included a young wife and mother who watched from the curb as her President’s brains splashed across the street.  It included one of the ER docs at Parkland Hospital who worked tirelessly to bring President Kennedy back, despite every medical indication being that he was gone.

That day fifty years ago changed the course of American history and global politics.  And for whatever reason, Irish Catholicism aside, I have always been attracted to the fairy tale of Camelot.  Hell, I have a Pinterest board dedicated to this era.  Something about the fashion, the optimism after World War II, the glamour and tragedy of the Kennedys.  It’s just rich — all of it so very rich and potent and interesting and magnetic and hopeful for me.  It’s probably no coincidence that my folks got married in 1958 and my Mom always and forever reminded me of Jackie Kennedy herself.  My folks bought into the whole Kennedy mystique, too.

Ich bin ein Kennedy, know what I mean?

So imagine my surprise and excitement when we went to adopt our new baby boy in Dallas/Ft. Worth.  Touching down at the DFW Airport, I couldn’t help but notice all the banners calling out jfk.org — the cyber home of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza where President Kennedy met his fate those fifty years ago.  I hadn’t made the Dallas/Ft. Worth – Kennedy connection until I saw those banners.  And this from someone who has made a pilgrimage to Chappaquiddick of all places.  I was excited and disappointed in myself all at the same time.

As we sped away to meet the mother of our soon to be son, I made a silent vow to go to the museum before I left Texas, come hell or high water.  And, being a gal of my word, I did.

Let me tell you, that is one hell of a museum.  I am the type of person who prefers a museum to a mall (I mean the best museums have the best gift shops anyway, amirite?), and a city to a beach.  I stole away for a few hours one day, leaving my family in Ft. Worth, as I made the trek to the Sixth Floor Museum, Dealey Plaza, and the infamous Book Depository building.

I was in the Irish-Catholic-political-dynasty-Kennedy-ZONE.  I was grateful to be alone, as I don’t think I know another person who would match my enthusiasm for this jaunt.  After getting over my disappointment that cameras were not allowed in the museum itself, I simply gave in to the experience.  It is a world class museum, curated with great care.  The Kennedy presidency is covered as is the zeitgeist of the era.

And then, as you move through the exhibit, you come to the day itself, November 22, 1963.  President Kennedy’s last night was spent in a hotel in Ft. Worth.  It was rainy during his outdoor early morning speech in Ft. Worth that Jackie opted out of. Did you know that the couple was mourning the death of their two day old infant just three months earlier?  But the campaign never stops, does it?  Not when you’re President.

Within a couple of hours the clouds and rain had lifted and the sun shone brightly.  The couple flew into Dallas and requested the open top car to diminish any obstacle between them and the people along the parade route as they snaked through the city streets.  Always campaigning.

The museum exhibit deftly tells the story of that bright Friday day in Dallas.  How there were full page ads in the local newspaper taunting President Kennedy.  How the police commissioner went on local radio programs requesting the citizens of Dallas be polite and welcoming of him.  How a man named Zapruder filmed the motorcade, inserting himself in one of America’s saddest days on record.  How bullets were fired and a President died.

I cried.  It was really well done.  I will never forget it.

So much was lost fifty years ago today, forever changing the trajectory of America.  As I’ve said before about grief, it both hardens and softens you.  The same can be said of collective grief — that day in America, we both hardened and softened. America felt deeply, moaned in unison, wept openly, feared for itself.

So, yes, I was not born during Kennedy’s lifetime, but I grieve as if I were.  I wonder about an America where three assassinations in five years wholly altered the course of history.  I cry for kids who lost their father, a culture who lost their icon, a religion that lost its pioneer, a mom who lost her son, a First Lady who lost her husband, a country who lost its shining hopeful light.

Rest in peace, President Kennedy.  Thank you for what you have taught me. I am grateful to you.

If you liked my post and would like to read other ChicagoNow bloggers reflections on Kennedy’s death, check out these blogs:

• Howard Moore of I’ve Got the Hippy Shakes writes about learning about the assassination while in school.
• Chicago radio personality writes about covering Kennedy and his assassination at Roy Leonard’s Ramblings.
• Liz Chilsen writes about her family’s personal connection to President Kennedy in her blog, Neighborland.
• Learn about the Chicago connection to Jack Ruby on Ed Nickow’s Not for Jews Only.
• Kathy Mathews of Quilting! Sewing! Creating! has had just about enough of crass humor related to Kennedy’s death from younger generations.

I’ve been driving a Mercedes for three years.  That is a sentence I never thought I would type, but it’s true.  And let me tell you, it’s been pretty cool, but now it’s time to say goodbye.

In 2010, Mary Tyler Dad was gifted a three year lease of a new Mercedes Benz C Class compact luxury sedan through his company after being awarded the distinction of “Inventor of the Year.”  Now beside the fact that I am married to an honest to goodness inventor, being gifted a brand spanking new car was pretty damn cool.  It happened only eleven months after losing our daughter to cancer, and I won’t lie, for the first time in a long, long time, it felt like the Universe was smiling down on us in that moment.

Full disclosure, I was way more excited than my husband.  He has sort of gritted his teeth through these 36 months of Mercedes driving.  I married myself a solid New England practical man — not great when you long for a French door refrigerator, but super cool in the retirement years, I am told. There was always a sense, I think, that he found the Mercedes distasteful, excessive, a little bit ridiculous.

Not me.  I have loved every single second sitting behind the wheel of that gorgeous car.  It had things that our other cars lacked, like a door handle that allowed you to get out of the car without powering down the window to extricate yourself from the outside.  Or a moon roof instead of gaudy maroon velour fabric that needed to be held up by thumb tacks.  The Mercedes introduced me to my now favorite two word combo ever:  heated seats.

Yes, make no doubt about it, I will always and forever look back fondly on my three years as a Mercedes Lady.  Except for those early moments of intense guilt driving a German luxury car around my Orthodox Jewish neighborhood. Oy vey, even non-practicing Catholics can feel that guilt.

To understand why I have loved this car so much, it’s important to have a wee bit of back story.  I grew up in the south suburbs of Chicago, the granddaughter of immigrants.  Lots of the kids I grew up with had fathers who worked in factories, not offices.  My own Dad was a bus driver in my very early years, a job he was happy to have after several episodes of unemployment in my infancy and toddler years.  Growing up the youngest of four, money was tight, but we always had what we needed.

Things loosened up considerably when my two older sisters tested their wings outside the home.  We were the first generation in my family to go to college.  Both of my parents were smart, but grew up in a time when college education wasn’t considered mandatory — it was a privilege, a luxury.  When you are raised by immigrants, practicality is important.  Honestly, my family’s story is the story of the American Dream.  My parents did better than their parents financially and we (my husband and I) are doing better than my parents.  I am grateful for everything I have.

That said, cars were never a big deal for me.  I was not impressed by them, never coveted them, didn’t understand them as an expression of status.  Sure, my Dad drove used Cadillacs, but that was, again, more a reflection of practicality than excess or status.  He had the oddest knack for and pride in finding a garage kept Cadillac with low mileage previously owned by a church going widow.  He would find a new/old Cadillac when the last new/old Cadillac gave up the ghost.  Those cars were awesome and perhaps the imprint for my secret love of luxury.  I potently remember sitting in the back seat, cigarette smoke swirling around me from the closed windows and two smoking parents, and Montolvani playing on the 8 track.  Used Cadillacs were a sweet, sweet ride.

My husband, like my father, doesn’t see the sense in a new car.  The argument is that they drop in value the instant you drive them off the lot.  And my husband also doesn’t like to have a car payment.  Thrifty and practical.  The two cars we had in September 2010 were a 1999 Toyota Camry and a 1994 Chrysler LaBaron.  Now you can see why the shiny black Mercedes got my juices flowing.  Well, when we drove that Mercedes into our spot, we immediately gifted the 1994 LeBaron to two close friends who needed some new wheels.  Pay it forward, you know?

A few words about the LeBaron.  I used to call it the Bordello Car.  It was my Mom’s old car.  Not bad, really.  She liked it because it was small and she could drive and park it easily.  She kept her Carmex in the arm rest.  My Mom was never far from a little jar of Carmex.  The ashes from her cigarettes were still in the ashtray.  After she was diagnosed with her brain tumor and her death within the year, well, you get sentimental about things like cigarette butts and ashes.

With my Mom no longer needing a car and my daughter recently diagnosed with cancer, my Dad gifted us the LeBaron so that my husband could get back and forth to work and hospital quickly.  It was a godsend, honestly.  I am very grateful to my Dad to this day for that kind gesture.  The 1999 Camry, our fancy car, even in 2010, was, in fine tradition, purchased from a little old church going lady.  She lived at the retirement community where I worked as a social worker.  She posted her car for sale and BAM, a couple of days later I was feeling pretty damn fancy myself.  This was back in 2006, so the car was only seven years old at the time.

Does this give you a sense of what an aberration the Mercedes was for us?

One thing I have learned in these three years of being a Mercedes Lady is that people look and treat you differently when you roll up in one.  Some people give you the silent nod of approval, an unspoken, “We are of like mind, like status, of similar ilk and quality, you are approved of . . .” For others, it is the exact opposite, a more hostile sense of rage, “You rich bitch.  Just who the fuck do you think you are, driving a Mercedes?”  You know what I mean.

The truth is, I am neither of those assumptions.  I am not a rich bitch.  Well, I might be a bitch, certainly sometimes, but I’m not rich.  Full disclosure, Mary Tyler Dad would argue with me on that one, maintaining that in the world economy, we are, indeed, rich when compared to the global population that exists on dollars a day and rice.  And even though I may pass as” similar ilk” to the other moms in the drop off lane at Mary Tyler Son’s private pre-school, I know otherwise.  I know that I am a 1999 Camry gal sitting behind a Mercedes steering wheel.

I had some great and good times as a Mercedes Lady, I did, indeed.  And while life was not better in a Mercedes, it was absolutely nicer.  Hell, the heated seats alone have changed my life.  Yessiree, I have loved my 36 months as a Mercedes Lady.  I will look upon them fondly for the rest of my days.

Auf Wiedersehen, my lovely C Class Mercedes Benz.  I will miss you. You were dope and fly and made me feel pretty damn fancy at a pretty damn sad time in my life.  Ich danke ihnen.