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From a recent email exchange:
Jagosaurus: Random thought I keep forgetting to articulate: Sometimes I wish we would jointly post (edited) versions of some of our conversations. We B Funny.Elsa: Oooh, blog fodder! Uh. I don’t have to post that part*, right?
J: You do not.
E: Sold!
J: Excellent. What happens next?
E: Yeeeeeah, I thought you’d know that. I, uh, something.
Here’s what happens next. Let’s start at the beginning. (Salty language and insect horrors ahead.) Read the rest of this entry »
Ladies and gentlemen, The Real Samuel James.
Grief follows hard on the heels of joy. Our family has gained a member and lost one, in quick succession. It’s a maelstrom of emotion, mixing up love and loss and celebration and sorrow — and that’s just this week. Who knows what next week will bring? Whatever it is, we’ll face it together. That’s what counts.
We cannot escape grief, nor should we wish to, because grief gives gravity to our happiness; it shows us the depth of our love by showing us how we would (and how we will) cry for our loved ones when they pass out of our ken.
But for the moment, I am not interested in philosophy or rationalizations or the graceful balance of grief and joy: I only want to love my family, old and new, and offer love and support, to take comfort in our shared laughter and tears and stories and remembrances, to supply gelato cones and handkerchiefs and hugs and a soft shoulder, should anyone need it.
Against all expectations, upon our marriage, I will change my name.
Uh, sorta, kinda, in a coupla places. Readers of The Fella’s weekly Video RePort will no longer know me by my given name, but as Mrs. Videoport Jones.
See, Future Mother-in-Law, I did take his name after all!
At a gathering of The Fella’s family — and let’s just call them The Beardface Family! — we had occasion to introduce a friend to The Fella’s mother. (For the sake of his privacy, here I’ll dub our friend Mike Smallbaker. That’s not quite right, but it’s the same construction: first name, and a last name composed of a common adjective and old-timey occupation.)
Later, The Fella’s Mother asked about his unusual surname, and The Fella told her that it was a hybrid: when they married, M. and his wife R. decided to combine their two last names into one.
The Fella’s Mother turned to me and, not for the first time, asked me, “So, Elsa, when you’re married, will you be a [Beardface]?”
Now, listen.
I am not changing my name, and TFM knows that, because she’s already asked me. We’ve had this conversation a coupla times already, and I’ve answered sweetly and earnestly. Twice.
So.
This time, I said, absolutely deadpan, “No, actually, we’re doing what M. and R. did.”
TFM, game as always, said, “Oh?”
“Yup. We’re both changing our names to Smallbaker.”
My future brother-in-law, sitting nearby, laughed until he tipped off the edge of his chair. The Fella’s Mother, um, did not.
note: Though I’m razzing her a little here, The Fella’s Mother is a lot of fun, and she — like the entire Beardface family — has gone out of her way to welcome me from the first day I met them, and to shower us with love and affection as we approach the wedding day. I’m stunned and grateful to have such loving in-laws, and even more grateful that they can take a joke.
I recently wrote about a friend’s potluck wedding reception, where family and friends fed each other, sharing their joy and love with the happy couple. The Fella and I aren’t having a potluck wedding, but for the past few months, I’ve been musing that our DIY wedding feels like a barnraising: our loved ones keep enthusiastically pitching in, lending their strength and talents to help us build something of value.
If you browse wedding forums or advice columns, you’ll soon bump into shrill warnings against this approach. Naysayers dismiss the handmade, homemade, shared nature of the event. It’s tacky, it’s rude, it’s cheap. It’s inconsiderate to expect guests to contribute to Your Special Day.
Of course guests don’t want to do your dirty work, but you can accept loving assistance (and even ask for it) without being rude or demanding. Some thoughts guiding our own requests:
- Our friends miiiiight enjoy showcasing their talents. They would not enjoy predictable drudgery; we’ll pay people for that.
- Any guest’s wedding-day contribution should be brief. Everyone wants to have fun!
- Things will go wrong. It doesn’t matter. If the cake falls over, if the photos don’t come out, if the iPod freezes… we’ll still be married at the end of the day.
-If anyone seems hesitant, for any reason or for no reason at all, we’ll withdraw our request.
If we ask you to consider helping out, it’s because we value your talent and we trust your judgment. That includes the judgment that leads you to say, “No, I’d rather not.”
In fact, we’ve made few requests so far; our family and friends keep amazing us with their offers of help, offers far more generous, creative, and serendipitous than we could have imagined.
Behind the click is a loooooong list of the help being offered, and a few requests we plan to make.
Having memorialized my late father, I must confess the dread, sorry truth that I kept from him as he lay on his deathbed. It was too horrible for him to face.
The dark secret is revealed at last: the door to their mailbox had come ever so slightly off its hinge, leaving the mail just barely exposed to the elements. When I walked down the long driveway and out the private road to the mailbox to collect Mom and Dad’s mail, I brushed a faint dusting of snow (or, sometimes — oh, god! — droplets of rain!) from the pile of envelopes and magazines before carrying them back to the house.
I never told Dad that the mail sometimes got damp. Knowing that would have been too great a strain on his mind.*
Shortly after Dad’s death, my brother-in-law J, a cheerful, practical fellow, rolled up his sleeves, yanked the old mailbox out of place, and screwed into place the shiny new mailbox from the hardware store! Yay!
Yay!
Hey… yay, right?
Not, as it turns out, yay. At least, not according to my mother, whose disapproval of the new mailbox came out in sighs and gusts of faint dismay. The new mailbox, you see, was a bit larger than the old one, and it somehow violated the, I dunno, dimensional balance of the previous arrangement. And this was bad.
How bad?
In my mother’s words, “Thank God your father’s dead. He would have hated to see that.”
My mother, whose words were in earnest, was understandably puzzled when sister Gaoo and I dissolved into (equally understandable) frantic hoots of laughter. For months after (and still occasionally, three years later), our conversations were laced with the phrase “Thank God your father’s dead!”
*And if you think I’m kidding about that, you never knew Dad, never saw him get agitated about a scratch on a tableleg, or coasterless glasses, or spots on a book jacket. A mailbox door hanging ajar, and his infuriating inability to do anything about it, would have made him wring his hands in futile worry.
My father died three years ago today.
Oddly enough, Elli is the one who reminded me of the date’s significance earlier this week, with a loving email from the other side of the world. But, of course, it was creeping in around the corners of my consciousness even before I read her email.
While the sunny-side of my brain was busy writing about John Donne and researching colonial foodways, renewing library books and organizing bills, thinking up dinners and planning Christmas lists, it was also fielding quiet messages from my mind’s shadowy side… messages that seemed to be obscure and insignificant memories… but when I look closer, I see that they all point to one day.
I miss you, Dad. I always will. I’m still finding jokes I want to tell you, goofy Christmas presents to make you laugh, people I want you to meet, stories I hope would make you proud.
I wish you’d met The Fella. He and I had planned to visit on that day, this day three years ago, bringing a Christmas tree for Mom… because he’d asked if he could do something, anything, to help her, to help you. I wish you could have known him, his fierce quiet intelligence, his wit, his impossibly good heart. I wish you could have seen how happy he makes me.
I wish… I wish a lot of things. But really, there’s not so much to wish for as there might be. You had a good life, even at the end of it. And you’re remembered with love and (never underestimate this) with laughter. I haven’t had a BLT since this one, but I think it’s time.
Fill our hearts with thankfulness;
Fill our hearts with grace,
Smile on our celebrations
And then bless us on our way.
HDS, November 24th, 2005
It worked here once before so I’m trying it again. Another friend from college has gone missing. Angela Claire Otey (married name Papahronis), both Emily Banks and I are looking for you! Come out, come out wherever you are!
Ange’s photo
When my grandmother was in the hospital after losing her mind, she had verbal diarrhea (she could not stop talking, period, and it was mostly delusional.) I tried to get her to calm her mind and her mouth by having her sing “row, row, row your boat” with me. Anything to redirect the onslaught. It didn’t work. I cried from sheer frustration having to spend the night alone listening to her and not being able to do a thing to help.
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When calling my mom after her stroke I sometimes get her answering machine. I imagine her attempting to get to the phone so I talk as long as possible in case she’s almost about to pick up. I give little warnings that I’m about to hang up. Soon. Almost. Not there. Really? You’re not picking up. Maybe you’re not there. One more sec. Okay.
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Things I sing in the toilet (because of the acoustics, mind you):
* Ave Maria
* Laurie Anderson “O Superman“
Elli
Elsa