Posts Tagged ‘family’
Cindy on June 18th, 2010
Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes.” ~Gloria Naylor
This short essay first appeared in the Daily Tribune (Royal Oak, MI) on Father’s Day, 1994, and is included in my story collection, Writing Home. If you’re lucky enough to have your dad around this Father’s Day, please give him a big hug from me. –CL
Dad’s last photograph
It’s my favorite photograph of Dad and me — one of those priceless family icons I’d rescue if the house caught fire. Taken on Father’s Day in 1992, it reveals the totally uncomplicated relationship we’d enjoyed right up to the moment the shutter clicked.
I use the word uncomplicated because I can’t think of a more lyrical way to describe my father or the way he lived. Even when pop psychologists urged us to scrutinize our parents and find them suspect, I saw my dad as a patient man whose agenda was rarely hidden. He was the kind of guy who appreciated most people just as they were, and I think that’s what we all loved best about him.
But let me explain the photograph.
Dad and I were standing on my back porch, having just finished the surprise Father’s Day dinner I’d hosted for him and my father-in-law.
Dad wore a pale blue windbreaker and an outdated pair of glasses that somehow looked right on him. My hair was orange, thanks to a failed experiment with a drugstore highlighting kit. The late afternoon sun shimmered through the maples in our yard, and my mother was anxious to finish the film left in her camera.
Dad and I hugged tightly for the shot.
He was sixty-five and grinning — despite the grim diagnosis of degenerative heart disease he’d been given a few months earlier. At thirty-seven, I was newly unemployed and unsure of my career path. The travel magazine I edited for nearly six years had folded abruptly, dropping me off at midlife without a new map. Still, summer had arrived and we were optimistic. Dad’s diabetes was under control, or as he put it, he’d been “feeling pretty darned good lately.”
Better yet, the ball games were in full swing. It wasn’t shaping up to be a stellar season for the Tigers, but Cecil Fielder and Lou Whitaker were giving it their best. (While I never shared my dad’s religious devotion to baseball, I still can’t hear the crack of a bat against a ball without remembering the old transistor radio he kept tuned to his games.)
But there’s something else about the photo. Looking at it today, you’d never imagine the two of us had a major-league concern beyond what we’d be eating for dessert that evening. Nor would you guess that this 35mm print chronicled one of our last days together.
The inevitable phone call came two weeks later on a Monday morning: “Your dad collapsed in the driveway. The ambulance is coming.”
So this week I’m very grateful for that luminous Father’s Day afternoon ten years ago — grateful I hadn’t waited another day to throw my dad a surprise party. I usually postpone my good intentions, adding them to a long list of things I plan to do later. Later, when there’s more time…
“Today is the only time we can possibly live,” wrote Dale Carnegie, whose work my father read often and admired. I see now that Carnegie’s philosophy is gleefully captured in my father’s grin, which my mother wisely captured on film. – Cindy La Ferle
Cindy on January 21st, 2009
Last year, a dear friend of mine fell from a ladder while working on a home-improvement project. She needed emergency surgery to repair her shattered knee, and had to spend weeks recovering at home with a battery of medical equipment.
My injured friend had a family to care for — not to mention a full-time office job that had to be put on hold while her injury healed. Meanwhile, she practiced her physical therapy, learning how to use crutches and trying not to collide with the furniture. But her biggest challenge, as she put it, was “learning how to give up control” while she rested on the couch with her leg propped up.
Nobody likes being injured or ill, but I’m convinced it’s twice as hard for mothers who suddenly find themselves incapacitated for weeks at a time. It doesn’t matter if we’ve been hit by a bus or a flu bug. Moms are programmed to be nurturers and fixers. We roll up our sleeves and pitch in when someone needs to be fed, bandaged, or chauffeured to softball practice. We’re more comfortable offering help than asking for it. Sitting still goes against our maternal grain.
While the moral of this story could be: “Girlfriends, never do home repairs that require a ladder,”I promise it is not.
Watching my friend move gingerly on her walker, I was reminded of the time I found myself in the same position seven ago after I had bilateral hip-replacement surgery.
A serious health crisis can be an excellent teacher — albeit a tough one. And this much I know for sure: I never would have grasped the full meaning of the word generosity had I not limped my way through several months of surgical rehab. During that time, a number of incredibly nice people conspired to make my life easier. Neighbors drove my son back and forth to school. Friends baked casseroles and delivered them to my family while I recovered in bed. In particular, I remember the savory chicken noodle soup a friend dropped off at exactly the moment I craved the taste of comfort.
I often wondered what I could ever do to return so much kindness. The answer came from one of the terrific nurses at William Beaumont Hospital who took care of me after my second surgery.
“Watch for opportunities to help someone else,” the nurse told me. “Be there when the time is right.”
Even the smallest acts of kindness, after all, are links in the great chain of generosity. Whenever we receive an abundance of love or care, our well overflows and we have more to share. Better yet, real generosity is boundless. It isn’t about keeping score or simply repaying the same people who’ve done favors for us. (I’ve been thinking about this a lot this week, after hearing President Obama’s call to community service.)
So, as soon as I learned about my friend’s accident, I headed straight for the kitchen and did what I’ve learned to do best in this type of emergency: I made enough minestrone to feed a family, then delivered it in Tupperware containers to my friend’s house. The following week, I made chicken soup and a batch of stew, alternating with other friends from church who had offered “meals on wheels.”
I don’t deserve special recognition for doing this; cooking for my friend was a selfish act. It made me feel better (or at least not so useless) in the face of her misery.
Recalling her long weeks of recovery, my friend told me recently that she couldn’t imagine how she’d ever repay all the generous people who’ve been so helpful. I told her that she doesn’t owe any of us anything in return, and I meant it.
“Next time someone else falls from a ladder,” I added, half seriously, “it will be your turn to bring the soup.” And I’m sure that’s what she’ll do. – Cindy La Ferle
Cindy on January 18th, 2009
“Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.” — E.B. White
Mothers and sons are as different as mineral water and motor oil, and there are times when the distance between us seems impossible to navigate. The road to a smooth relationship often depends on the vehicle.
Just as the automobile is crucial to Detroit’s economy, cars have always been a key part of our household, not to mention our family mythology.
Before he learned to talk, my son Nate was drawn to anything with wheels â garbage trucks, trains and, especially, sports cars. And during the early years of his adolescence, the sanctity of the sports car was often the only non-combustible topic the two of us could discuss and agree upon. Whether we were driving in my SUV or his dad’s business sedan, a cool sports car never failed to turn our heads and inspire us to dream aloud.
These memories came tumbling back because the 2009 Detroit Auto Show (known officially as the North American International Auto Show) opens this week. It’s the first year I won’t be attending it with Nate, who graduated college last year and moved to Chicago. As I type this, he’s flying around the country on assignment. Since he lives in the city, Nate doesn’t even own (or need) a car now.
Flipping through the Detroit Free Press this morning, I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic for years past, when touring the auto show was the highlight of our snowy Michigan winters. Our whole family enjoyed every chrome-flashing highlight of each year’s awesome displays, from edgy concept cars to sexy luxury sedans.
In 2007, when I covered the show for our local daily newspaper, for instance, my husband and I drooled over the elegant Lamborghini display while Nate coveted the handcrafted Aston Martin V8 Vantage, which would have earned a thumbs-up from James Bond himself. And we were especially impressed the futuristic concept models, one of which actually promised a gas-free daily commute for Americans whose drive to work is 20 miles or less. (Remembering my dad’s gas-guzzling â60s Chevy Impala, I gave GM an enthusiastic thumbs-up for eco-friendly progress.)
As a mom, I’m forever indebted to my automobiles for safely transporting my son back and forth to school, music lessons, field trips, and family vacations.
But like everyone else who sustains a longtime romance with cars, I also like to think of them as vessels of good memories.The mere flash of a chartreuse Camaro, for example, is enough to conjure a few reveries of my own carefree college days. And every time I spot a Jeep Cherokee on the road or at a car show, I recall the times I traversed the suburbs with a cargo of neighborhood kids and their backpacks. Likewise, my son still waxes nostalgic about the old Honda Prelude — our first family sports car — that was sold to another driver several years ago.
I’m tempted to revisit the Detroit Auto Show with my husband this year. If only for a few hours, maybe the two of us can forget winter’s chill and Michigan’s droopy economy. We could inhale the heady scent of new leather interiors and recharge some old memories. Or we could picture ourselves driving off into the sunset — at 100 miles an hour — in a brand-new, bubble-gum yellow Dodge Circuit EV concept. Oh yes, we can dream.
Cindy on December 29th, 2008
“Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each year find you a better person.” — Benjamin Franklin
I stopped making New Year’s resolutions a long time ago. They rarely stick — and only serve to throw me into a vicious cycle of guilt, remorse, and self-contempt for the better part of January.
Instead, I stumbled on another ritual that works in the long run. I call it my “lessons in the rear-view mirror” exercise, which is simply a review of what I learned throughout the past year. Here are a few of my hard-earned epiphanies from 2008:
* Change, hope, democracy, and possibility aren’t just verbiage for a campaign slogan. Despite an incredibly vicious presidential campaign that pitted neighbor against neighbor, the first African American was elected to the highest position of government in the United States. The epitome of grace under pressure, Barack Obama reminds me that anything is possible in America, and that people who expect more from life (and themselves) often get it.
* When friends and neighbors truly love you, they won’t sever the relationship just because you didn’t vote Republican or put Obama signs on your lawn. The really good ones still bring you coffee cake.
* Frugality is cool again. In the midst of a long recession, conspicuous consumption has gone the way of the manual typewriter. Many of us woke up to the fact that we already have everything we need — including a supportive family, longtime friends, good neighbors, and a closetful of unworn clothes that still have price tags hanging on them. Our houses are big enough, our cars are new enough, our lives are rich enough. Enough is enough.
* There’s no such thing as “getting ahead.” When everything around you is changing rapidly, slowing down to catch your breath is often the best course of action. I regret that I spent the first half of my life dashing frantically from one activity to the next, as if there were a contest for the achiever who got it all done first. “What will your tombstone say?” humorist Loretta LaRoche asks us to consider. “Will it say, ‘Got it all done, dead anyway?’ ”
* We all deserve to be paid what we’re worth, whether we practice dentistry, carpentry, or journalism. Our experience and expertise have value — and others have more respect for services they have to pay for. When I give away my professional skills, people not only perceive me as generous, they also think of me as a walking freebie. I also make it harder for my colleagues to earn a decent wage.
* Parenting is the most important job a person can ever do, and it’s worth giving it the absolute-best you’ve got. Kids grow up faster than you can say “empty nest.” It’s a sappy cliche, I know, but until you watch your kid pack the car and drive off to his own new place in another state, you don’t really believe it.
* When someone steals one of your best ideas, it’s hard to get it back.
* You can’t take anything for granted. The Detroit newspaper crisis got me thinking about my 25-year career writing for print media. My smallest paychecks — and my biggest thrills — were always earned from a byline in my local newspaper. As Joni Mitchell sang, “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone…”
* Support networks really work. Having a posse of gifted writers with whom to commiserate has kept me sane — and hopeful — and I’m forever grateful for their friendship. Despite all the bad news for print media, writers are an optimistic bunch. Already, fresh ideas are brewing and there’s plenty of positive talk about publication start-ups and new ways of making a living with words. There’s hope in the midst of change.
* Love makes everything better. Everything.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
– Cindy La Ferle
Cindy on December 27th, 2008
“If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as work.” — William Shakespeare.
I love the small breathing space between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve. As much as I enjoy shopping and cooking for family and dear friends, I also appreciate the chance to steal some quiet time to reflect on the past year. I’ll be back to share some thoughts for the new year in a couple of days.
P.S. A big thank you to everyone who purchased Writing Home as a holiday gift this year! Earlier this week, the book was sold out again on Amazon. From the proceeds I wrote a check to the Welcome Inn warming shelter hosted at the Unity church here in Royal Oak, and another to the Salvation Army. –CL
I use the word uncomplicated because I can’t think of a more lyrical way to describe my father or the way he lived. Even when pop psychologists urged us to scrutinize our parents and find them suspect, I saw my dad as a patient man whose agenda was rarely hidden. He was the kind of guy who appreciated most people just as they were, and I think that’s what we all loved best about him.
