I’m remembering my mom today. Though she died more than twenty-five years ago, her influence on my life was enormous.

When I was young, every day after school I would enjoy a snack and a two-hour conversation with my mom. Our conversations would last until she served dinner at 5:30 pm sharp (unless Dad arrived home later). This continued through my early teens. The value of that time I spent with her is immeasurable.

1. I learned how to cook. Food has always been important to me. I realized when I was very young that if I knew how to shop for groceries and how to cook with the right ingredients I would be the master of my own food destiny.  I especially enjoyed cooking cheese blintzes with my mom. She prepared the cheese stuffing. I had the fun of frying the skins. And, of course, I most enjoyed the dinners created by our joint efforts:  Cheese blintzes with sour cream.
2. My mother was a great cook, but the best food was always for “the company.” Fortunately, mom knew to always prepare more food than “the company” could eat. I used to wake up early the next morning, before my little brother, so I could finish off most of the leftovers. To this day, I follow my mom’s lead and make a little more than I expect “the company” to finish.
3. From my mom I not only learned the value of taking good care of myself, I learned the importance of following good advice. For example, she stressed that I should brush my teeth at least twice a day. But because I didn’t always follow her advice when I was younger I now have a number of tooth implants, She also taught me to shower every day and not only do I follow that advice (thankfully), I find that is where I do my best thinking.
4. My mom taught me to drive carefully. She hated driving. She couldn’t wait until I turned sixteen and had my own driver’s license so I could drive her around. Alas, when I was fifteen and a half I “borrowed” my mother’s car without permission. A friend with a license drove us to the beach. My father discovered my illicit trip (sand in the car?) and postponed my driver’s license until I was sixteen and a half. Poor Mom. But to this day I always pay strict attention when I drive.
5. My mother instilled in me the value of being generous to others. She always offered a kind word or helping hand to anyone who needed it. To carry on her legacy, I founded a philanthropic organization to help children in need fulfill their potential.
6. My mother taught me how to garden. She also taught me to dream big and have patience. As a kid I grew a twenty-four pound banana squash (see the photo above). Later this year, my publisher, Clavis Publishing (an international publishing house based in Belgium), is publishing my children’s book Benji and the Twenty-Four Pound Banana Squash.
7. My mom taught me that I should value everyone no matter their gender. Specifically she insisted I should have a few boys as friends. When I was ten I wanted to invite only girls to my birthday party.  “No,” Mom said, “you have to invite at least one boy.”  So I invited one boy.  And a dozen girls.  In my twenties I began to make friends with men.  Now, some of my closest friends are men (though I still prefer women).

Enjoy your Mother’s Day on Sunday, hopefully with a lunch or dinner, surrounded by relatives, friends, and good conversation. Maybe even include a few male relatives or friends. if your mother insists.

Alan

I’ve always lived in a haunted house.

I’m not talking about a house with ghosts that pass through walls, or rattle chains in the basement or the attic. I’m talking about all of those ghosts that live in the shelter of my own mind.

When I was thirty-one years old, single and dating, I always asked one question on a first date; “How did you get along with your father?” I believe that all of us project our father’s or mother’s face onto each man or woman we meet later in life.  Sprite, for example, adored her father. That’s a ghost I can happily live with. And yes, when I was young, I thought my mother was a Saint. I still do.

Some of my ghosts are helpful. They inspire me by murmuring words of encouragement. “You can do this.”  “Express your love.”  “This too will pass.” I will always have a cozy nook in my mind for those phantoms that care about me

But what about the wicked goblins who, all too often, spring from their hiding places deep in my mind to taunt me with memories I’ve long ago transformed into enduring expectations of rejection and failure?  Those spooks are nasty to live with and difficult, if not impossible, to evict.

When I was two or three years old, I woke up screaming every night with a recurring nightmare of being chased by “The Big Bad Wolf” who was going to eat me alive.  My father always raced into my room to sit on the side of my bed.  He patiently suggested that, in my dream, I should stand my ground. He told me that instead of running away, I should turn around, face the Big Bad Wolf, and tell him “I’m not scared of you. Go away Mr. Wolf.”

I tried to follow my dad’s advice, but running away felt safer. But finally, after many months, I did what my dad suggested.

In my dream I stopped running, turned around, and said to the slobbering Wolf, “Mr. Wolf, I’m not afraid of you. Go away.” To my surprise, the Wolf looked startled.  Then the Wolf stopped, turned around himself, and slunk away.

“Daddy, daddy, the wolf ran away!” I ran into their bedroom and woke up both of my parents to spread the good news.

That wolf has never returned. Nor has the dream which haunted me after I graduated from college. Maybe you know that one, in which you haven’t attended class, never read the text book, and have to take the final exam in two hours?

Most of the internal ghosts which I struggle with today visit me while I’m entirely awake. They whisper to me, “That person won’t like you.”  “You’re too fat.”  “Sprite doesn’t want you anymore.  She didn’t greet you as ardently today as she did yesterday.”

These whispers are rooted in my past, not my present, and I don’t expect to ever dislodge them all.  But I’m making progress. Some of my ghosts, such as “You have to work all the time,” or “Sprite will emotionally abandon you one day,” have begun to pack.

It has taken determination, reassurance from others, and the passage of time for me to reduce the influence of those voices. It also helps when I talk or write about them, exposing my ghosts-in-residence to the light of today.

I’ve always lived in a haunted house. How about you?

Alan

I’m newly married. As you might expect, this means I’m making changes in my life. This morning I began to work on selling my vacation home in the San Juan Islands, a home I built more than twenty-five years ago. It’s a beautiful place, surrounded by tall trees, where my family and I spent many joyful days.

Michael is the general contractor who built my Friday Harbor home and has helped to maintain it ever since.  Over the years we’ve become good friends, sharing our life experiences, our hopes, our disappointments.  Whenever we are both on the island we visit and have dinner together. We have watched each other’s children grow up.  We have moved from being active in our respective businesses, working sixty hours a week, to wanting to slow down a bit (though neither of us has entirely managed that yet).

Today I called Michael to discuss the house but then, as often happens, our conversation turned elsewhere. As we talked I began to feel sad, but not about parting with my home away from home.  I’m not sad about no longer visiting the San Juan Islands with my family.  We will see each other somewhere else.  I’m sad about leaving behind the friend I’ve known for so many years.

It might seem strange, but sadness is one of my favorite emotions.  Sadness is deep, and it invites intimacy.  When I’m sad my barriers come down and I can gratefully accept comfort and support from those to whom I feel close.  That’s a very good thing.

Years ago I coined a phrase, “Life is loss.”  That’s not meant as a downer.  I know that life is often about what we gain – new friends, new experiences, new abilities. But ultimately our friends move away, our memories fade, and our abilities change and disappear.  That’s sad, but to me it isn’t unhappy.

Where do I go from here?  I just don’t think I’d be getting up there very often, so I’m planning to sell the house Michael built, largely with his own hands, so many years ago.

I’m sure that Michael and I will share a final dinner, toast to our friendship, and promise to stay in touch.  You know how that goes.  We’ll really mean it. But will we ever get together again?  I’ll cling, for a while, to the idea that it’s possible, even though, in my experience, a distance of almost a thousand miles is seldom overcome.

I had close friends in high school, and I’ve enjoyed previous intimate relationships, all now consigned to the twilight of nostalgia.  My life, every life, at some point changes irrevocably, as it did for my grandparents when they boarded a ship in Europe, more than one hundred years ago, leaving everything and everyone they loved behind, to begin a new life in New York.

Contemplating the changes I’m making in my own life, I already feel an emptiness in my heart, which I know will be filled by my new marriage, discoveries to come, friends I will meet. But I can never replace the memory of Michael and our building a home in the woods, our talks, our solving problems together. In a library Michael recently read my blog on hiking.  He laughed out loud and received a stern look from the librarian. Another memory we share.

So this morning I raise an imaginary glass to the past, good times, and to a very dear friend who may soon be found in the mist of what has been.

Alan