GGS

37/52 – My Mother-in-Law

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​Having just returned from Ireland, with October upon us, and our applepicking happening just this afternoon, my mother-in-law has been much on my mind. Jean. Our trip was visiting her home, her cousins, and interring her ashes with her father, and applepicking was her “holiday”. She came up every year for applepicking and was also here for most of my middle child’s birthdays. He was born in October. She didn’t drive, but that didn’t stop her; not one bit. At home she traveled by public bus or walked or with friends. She used to take bus tours for those senior casino trips. She rode Greyhound or Trailways or whichever line was available to see us, arriving in New York’s capital in the afternoon before the roads were seized by rush hour. She also took Amtrak to visit my sister-in-law when she was in Virginia or Maine. She knew how to pack and only brought what she could carry, leaving plenty of room to bring home loads of apples.

When she left home in Northern Ireland, she traveled the world, meeting new people, finding adventure. From the UK to Afghanistan to India to Australia to America, where she settled, getting married, and having kids.

So many stories to tell, tea to drink, food to create and share, not to mention her Christmas dinners that I can only try to emulate and her trifles that I won’t even attempt for fear of not meeting anyone’s expectations, least of all mine.

Growing up in Northern Ireland to a Catholic mother and a Protestant father, she was not a fan of the church and its rules, especially because of the way her father was treated back in the day. However, she was remarkably supportive when I became Catholic with no warning or preamble. She encouraged me. She found items that she had from her mother – a book of Catholic prayers for example, signed with her mother’s name and dated 1919. She said she didn’t know why she had kept it for so long, but now she knew and gave it to me along with a small First Communion statuette and a key chain with tiny figures of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

She was kind and generous and gave more than we could have ever given back.

Every step, every rock, every drop of rain in Ireland reminded me of her, especially always bringing an umbrella along.

Just in case.

36/52 – Applepicking

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​My second son was due on October 21st (in 2004). On the twenty-third, I was sitting in the backseat of our station wagon while he was sleeping in his car seat. His grandma, Dad, and older brother were in the orchard adjacent to us, amidst the trees, picking apples.

Red ones.

Green ones.

Each eating one from the tree as was (and continues to be) our tradition. We took a few photos of apples piled on him as he slept and compared the largest ones to his tiny head.

However, he was not two days old, but eleven having come nine days early after two excruciating days in unrecognized labor. His was the most difficult of my three pregnancies, but his kind and gentle personality, his compassion and willingness to help others makes all of that, not only worth it, but mostly forgotten. His birthday is filled with his favorite, cheesecake – the only child who gets a homemade birthday cake because I can do a great cheesecake – the best according to him. Thanks Philly!

We also always go applepicking and spend the rest of the season eating perfect New York apples in all its variety – cider, cider donuts, turnovers, pie, tarts, chutney, sliced, and the best way, right off the tree or right out of the bsket kept in the coolness of the back porch.

34/52 – October

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​October.

When the real fall begins.

The colors of the leaves are changed just enough to notice on every highway; every corner.

If you have kids they will bring home fall art of trees using “fall” colors in torn tissue papers, sponge prints, fingerprints with tiny thumbs red from pressing apples onto the trees.

Rows of pumpkins appear on every church lawn, primarily Methodist for some unknown reason (to me) reason.

Harvest festivals and school fundraisers as well as my local retreat center and interfaith council.

Apple, pumpkin, and sweet potato pies fit for space on supermarket shelves.

Trying to squeeze in family applepicking before the apples are gone, but scheduling around work schedules and birthday parties.

October is also the month of the rosary. This year is a special one as we celebrate the centennial of the Marian visitation to Fatima, Portugal. The process for Sister Lucia to join her cousins, Jacinta and Francisco in sainthood has begun. Will she be beatified on the centennial of the final visit (October 13th)?

This will be my second year participating in the Living Rosary at my church.

Jack O’Lanterns, spiders, and a row of little Batmans and Disney Princesses round out the moth and usher in the holiday season from Halloween until the New Year.

October has arrived.

30/52 – September

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​It used to be that September was known for Back to School, falling leaves, and colors changing. Even outside of the Northeast, that is the stereotype of fall and September.

Now, and for the last few years we have had what many call an Indian summer. It cools off just enough to lull you into plaid and flannel, and then Mother Nature turns up the thermostat. It’s warmer today than most days this past summer. The first week in September, just a few weeks ago, I thought I was still in Northern Ireland – bright, sunny, occasional rain, and seventy degrees max!

What happened September?

Still, I won’t be stopped from wearing my sweater and my favorite boots to kick around the leaves – red, gold, orange, and yellow, eating an apple right off the tree, or from drinking that often too hot apple cider.

If I stand in the shade, it might just feel like fall.

My Friend, Anne

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It’s hard to know the entirety about a person even when you see them often. We tend to group people into family, friends, work colleagues, acquaintances, but in all of those labels there are those who don’t fit or who fit into more than one.

My friend, Anne was like that. I met her at church. For a long time, I didn’t know her name. She sat two rows behind me, and every daily mass that we attended together, we’d shake hands and share the peace of Christ. She always smiled at me, and reached across the separating pew, and I looked forward to our daily rite.

She knew my name before I knew hers. Even after knowing her better, I would always confuse her last name with her first name since her last name was also a first name.

She was also part of the Red Hats group that I lunched with monthly. She never wore a hat, but she always had on a brightly colored jacket and scarf. She was always put together, and she had a brightness that expounded on her outfit.

She always welcomed me, and asked about my kids.

I saw her sometimes in the grocery store.

We had one of our Red Hat luncheons at her house, just last year, and I saw her collections from her travels. One was a miniature tea pot with a red dragon on it from Wales. Her house was full of greens, and her back porch was almost identical in shape to ours, so she let me take a few pictures for my husband who’s been wanting to make ours more functional and less storage. She even invited him over to take a look at how theirs was decorated to give him some ideas.

We disagreed vehemently on politics, but the few conversations we had proved to be more discourse than argument, and a benefit to us both. 

She was just so kind to me, and vibrant. She had a booming way of talking, but she didn’t leave you being shouted at. She was just full of spirit.

She died last week. She suddenly became sick and that became worse, and than something else happened, and it just limped along, but her faith kept her. Her family and friends visited, and she called on our priest to come to see her, as recently as a few days before she died.

When I read her obituary, I discovered things I hadn’t known.

For one thing, she was 82. I know that my Red Hats group tends to be older, but I would have pegged her for 70 at the most, and more likely I thought she was in her sixties.

She was born in the town where I went to college, and in fact attended that college, studying education as I did. We graduated thirty-one years apart, both with Bachelor’s of Science degrees in Education. I don’t think either of us knew that we had that in common. Our school’s mascot is a Red Dragon, like the national symbol of Wales.

In realizing that she had been a teacher I could now recognize how she spoke. Teachers have this way of getting things across, and Anne was no different.

Her funeral is tomorrow.

She was steadfast and kind, faithful and spirited.

She will be greatly missed.

It’s the Last Midnight…the last wish…

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​I have it from an unreliable source that this will be the last gishwhes.

I call the source unreliable because it’s Misha Collins, and I’m sure that there is something else up his sleeve. There is also the qualification made that it’s the last gishwhes “as we know it.”

I’m actually kind of happy in a melancholy way; even bittersweet, but the fact was that it was hard for me to pump up my enthusiasm to run around like a lunatic, forcing my kids to help me. I have no one else in my neighborhood to join my team, and that leaves some items off limits. I do tend to focus on the artistic ones, the writing ones, and the kindness ones.

I really liked that last year the focus moved to slightly more random acts of kindness rather than impossible to do crazy ones. I think that Misha put some on that were literally impossible to do, but then people tried them, and he discovered that people are generally crazier than we would give them credit for. Disclaimers had to be included over the years to avoid hurting yourself or your pets or doing something illegal. One would have thought that a participant would have put those under the common sense categories, but nope.

I love my team. I have found lifelong friends in the Brave Little Ants. I’ve found some people who I agree with ideologically and politically, and I’ve found others who I don’t. And that’s the point, isn’t it? We don’t live in a self-contaitned bubble. We need others to survive on this great big blue ball we call ours, and gishwhes was one way to prove that to a lot of naysayers and unbelievers.

Disagreement fosters discussion, and discussion creates education and understanding.

My new friends include military personnel, a gun owner in Texas, atheists, religious people, conservatives, liberals, progressives, married, divorced, single, homeschoolers, teachers, artists, writers, jewelry makers, parents and non-parents.

In our three years, we’ve covered Canada, Denmark, Spain, California, Colorado, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Utah, Georgia, Texas, and Missouri.

Our ages ranged from 19-50.

Earlier in the week, I grabbed my kids and put gas in the car and headed on an adventure. I know that the spontaneity of that was directly linked to my years of gishwhes, and how it let me push myself a little farther and become a little freer.

Without gishwhes in its official capacity I’m hoping that it has given me enough confidence that I can continue to create art and be kind. Like a habit, but a much more positive one, like buying coffee for the guy behind you in line.

I’ll miss you, Gishwhes, but I also know that you’ll be with me and within me for the forseeable future.

P.S. Thank you, Misha Collins.