No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing. (Lear 3.2.37)

So….. guess who called me the other night….

My younger brother—yeah, the one who kicked our mom out of the house she bought. [read about that here]

Now, Mom has been here since January 16th and this is the first we’ve heard from him. I was totally taken off guard. Very awkward—he’s my baby brother and I love him, but I want to choke him for what he’s done.

And he’s all la-de-da, life is beautiful….

Yeah—really.

I didn’t know what to say or do. I am even more convinced he’s bipolar or something. He's basically a good person, but something has gotten screwed up along the way. He genuinely doesn't see that what he did was horrible and wrong. Everyone else does, but not him. It’s sad—and takes some of the bite out of my anger. I’ve already lost one person in my life to mental illness; I don’t want to lose another.

We were very close as kids. We're 14 months apart in age, so we played together constantly. Those memories kept coming back to me.

I was very cordial, chatted with him for a bit. But seriously, I was really uncomfortable—all of the things I wanted to say jumbling around in my head….. For a change, my editing equipment was on. It probably wasn’t the time to get into it. Mom is still trying to settle some legal stuff with him and I don’t want to complicate matters for her.

But—and this is a kicker!!—he talked about maybe coming East for a visit soon. Like he’s gonna be greeted with open arms by the family here…

I’ll keep you posted…..

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. -King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 3.

Today we celebrate Veteran’s Day here in the US.

I have very mixed feelings about that. My father was a veteran of WWII, serving in the Pacific. In the thick of it. He contracted malaria and suffered a brain hemorrhage, but his time in the military was one of his best memories. My eldest brother was a conscientious objector to the war in Viet Nam, he felt war was wrong. He got a very low draft lottery number and refused induction in 1970. In the thick of it. You can imagine the tension at our house….

And, hopefully, you can understand my mixed emotions. I was proud of what my father did, but understood and empathized with my brother’s point of view. WWII was a necessary action—Hitler and Japan had to be stopped. A fact that became even more apparent when the horrors of the concentration camps were discovered. And it was a formal, declared war. Viet Nam was the complete opposite of that. There was no clear reason why we were there, no exit strategy and lives were being brutally and uselessly lost or destroyed. Only to have it end pretty much the way it started…. [just like Korea before it]

Now, my brother wasn’t a coward. He proved that by NOT running off to Canada. No, he stayed here and was put on trial in Federal court. He was convicted of a felony for not wanting to kill people and was sentenced to 3.5 years of alternate service at Haverford State Mental Hospital . This was followed by 7 years of probation. During this period, he was unable to get any kind of meaningful employment because he was a convicted felon. And when interviewers heard what he was convicted for, they treated him like scum. Sadly, he started drinking and was dead of cirrhosis at the age of 33. Not all of the names of those lost in the Viet Nam war are on the wall in Washington.

While I greatly appreciate the many young men and women who voluntarily enlist, I still don’t understand why countries choose war as a means to settle differences. As a mother and a grandmother, I don't want to send my loved ones that I invested so much time and love into off to be slaughtered or maimed. I hate that other mothers have had to bury their offspring. I know many people will accuse me of being unpatriotic, but I have questions, doubts. I’m in the thick of them……

Peace.

to take arms against a sea of troubles

I always seem to have a sea of troubles…. If not my own, my loved ones. I’ve come through a lot; the good, the bad, the ugly. All with my sense of humor intact—if not my bod. [Sorry this is such a recurring theme—and if I seem to be “beating a dead horse.” ] But, I’m in for some big challenges over the next few months. Cause…..this latest one is a real beaut. Because it’s hurting someone who doesn’t deserve it.

15 years ago, after my father passed away, my youngest brother invited our mother to come be with him in California. Which she did. She sold the house in Florida and went cross country, subsequently using the profits from that sale to buy a home where she lived in one half and he lived in the other. The property also included a large 2-car garage that my brother, a contractor, could use for his workshop. My brother could never have afforded a house on his own—in California—let alone one with all of this one’s advantages. The deal was he would get the house upon my mother’s death in exchange for being there to care for her if she needed it. My older brother and I were fine with that. Having Mom cared for and happy was way more important than an inheritance.

Not that our mother is in any way feeble, mind you—see this post. She is an amazing, bright, self-sufficient woman—who was still working up until about a year ago. AND. She minds her own business. Let me repeat that: SHE MINDS HER OWN BUSINESS. She’s not all up in your grill—she only gives advice if asked. Something I’ve tried to do with my own adult children. Anyway, my point is that it’s not a typical “having a parent living with you” set-up.

Well, my younger brother has lost it and is evicting our mother from her home. And we can’t figure out why. Apparently, unbeknownst to us, he has flown into rages against her in the past and the you-know-what hit the fan 2 weeks ago. AFTER he’d returned from 4 months in Thailand mind you.

I don’t get it. Seriously, I just don’t get it.

So, my mom is coming to live with me. I hate to make her come back to cold winters, but I can’t move out there. And she’ll have a ton of family and old friends here. Brother has decided that she is not entitled to any payback on the house, so finances will be tight. But,….. what else is new. This has been my life for as long as I can remember. We will manage somehow.

So, as you can see, we’ll be facing some big challenges in the next few months: figuring out what Mom should bring and what she should part with, [resisting the urge to beat the crap out of brother], finding an apartment that we can afford—and that affords each of us some privacy, [resisting the urge to beat the crap out of brother], deciding how to get Mom here—with her car or without, [resisting the urge to beat the crap out of brother—maybe if I say it enough it will actually happen].

Send good vibes our way—and any suggestions for assistance available too.

Thanks, E

What's in a name? That which we call a rose..."

Okay, let's start off by saying I wasn't always enamored of my name.

I felt odd cause no one else shared it with me. My brothers all had regular old All-American "guy" names: Bill, Bobby and Rick. How come I had something out of the ordinary? [When you're a kid you totally want to fit in, don't you? If you're lucky, as you mature, you realize standing out rocks.]

When I eventually found out how I got my name, it was kinda cool. I was 4 days old before it was bestowed upon me--by my oldest brother. My parents, excited over their first [and, it turned out, only] girl, could not agree on what name suited me. My father suggested Joan, after one of his nieces. My mother politely demurred: "There's already a Joan in the family. It'll be like 'Robert'." [Say "Bob" at one of my dad's family reunions and 15 guys would turn around.] Then dad offered Jane...."Oh no," said my mother, "Then she'll get 'Plain Jane.' I'm not doing that to our daughter." [Third kid in six years, I guess mom was a little cranky--she usually never argued with my dad.]

Well this continued on.....with the letter "J" seeming to having a real hold on the negotiations for some reason . Into the picture comes my 6 year old eldest brother; he was a happy little first grader. I guess my dad was talking about his nameless little sister to him as he was putting him to bed or something.... In his school reader, the main characters were John, Jean and Judy [apparently a contender, albeit briefly]. BUT--they had two friends who lived down the block: Bobby and Ellen. Six year old reasoning being what it is, he made the connection: "We have a Bobby, why not an Ellen?" Bingo, I had a name.

Now, when it came time for my late husband and I to name our two little ones, I agonized over it for months. And I mean agonized--I remembered my feelings when I was little and didn't want to put my kids through the same thing. Our daughter was born on Valentine's Day of 1975 and my hubby allowed me to pick her name. After much thought, I chose Megan as a tribute of sorts to my Irish grandfather. I opted to not use the more Gaelic spelling, Meghan, because I thought it might confuse people. As it was, my husband's grandmother could never remember it--she called her "Nutmeg" til the day she died. I had real doubts about my choice after the umpteenth time I explained the name--but then The Thornbirds came out and by the time she started kindergarten there were two other Megans.

Our son joined the family on March 14th, 1976. His dad got the honors of naming him and chose Jason--partly after Jason and the Argonauts. It's a good strong name and our son has grown into a good strong man. I think both of my children are very happy with their names--thank God. I would feel awful if I found out I'd stuck them with something they hated.

A name can influence your behavior, I think. It can make you feel like you have "street cred." I mean it's hard to go all gangsta with the name Cuthbert or Chauncey. And who could feel very sexy/glamourous named something like, say, Agnes? By the same token, names such as Chastity or Faith can put alot of pressure on a person. A name can be a powerful entity that casts a shadow over who you are in life.

I often wonder what was going through their parents minds when I hear some people's names. Now some are very cool and have real character to them, but others......
Some poor souls are stuck with the most outrageous monikers! I know if it was me and I had a name that just screamed to be mocked, I'd be down at the courthouse changing it the minute I turned 21.

But maybe I'm just a wimp.