Another year, another chance to dress the kids up as whatever I want for Halloween! Sort of... Dominic's developing sense of self-consciousness put a light damper on those plans for this year and I realize this might have been the last year I will get to pick their costumes. How sadly short-lived was my reign! Amy had bought a toddler-Flamenco dress for Noemie on her trip to Spain a year and a half ago and I've been planning for this Halloween ever since! But Dominic's planned costume of matador had to be changed at the last minute, for fears that feelings of inadequacy would torment him for the rest of his young adulthood if he walked the streets of Plantation, Florida dressed as a sissy Spaniard beside Spiderman, Optimus Prime, and Obi Wan. The most appropriate costume that came to mind was that of Zorro. Their costumes have to coordinate because I'm cheesy that way.
My to-do list always seems to out-pace me. But this is never truer than in the holiday season. At some point, I have to start deciding what is most important in my life, because if I don't than the consequences of my failures will prove that decision for me. As Danny used to tell me long ago, one shouldn't prioritize his schedule, but schedule his priorities. I can only imagine this is a new phenomenon- to be overwhelmed by competing priorities. What choices did farmers in the 1700s have to make? Do I clean the gun barrel or do I play the fiddle? I'm sure Laura Ingalls Wilder's father could do both simultaneously. But me?
Do I sleep an extra fifteen minutes or play cars with Dominic on the rug? Sit down for a cream cheese bagel breakfast, or wait till I'm too hungry to make rational decisions and grab some cookies when my tummy starts to rumble... and then lament my sugar crash half an hour later that incapacitates the rest of my morning? Read my Bible or make my square for our family's contribution to my sister-in-law's baby adoption quilt? Blog or take a nap or play the piano? Organize computer files or sweep the floor? Bake an apple pie or take the kids for a walk?
Most of my decisions (usually with the exception of breakfast) are not choosing a good thing over a bad thing. But there are a limited number of hours in a day and I at some point I have to sleep. So I hear. But when the kids are awake and playing, I have to choose how I will spend that time- whether I will spend it with them, playing with them, teaching them, singing with them, coloring with them, or if I will use those activities to distract them so I can clean, or research, or take time to breathe. There will come a day when my kids won’t be kids any more. I can't have that time back. But by the same token, if I don't scrapbook the memories now, I won’t be able to recall them when I do have the time for scrapbooking. Cristovan is five months old and I still haven't written a thank you card for the woman at church who organized meals for me the week after his birth. At some point, doesn't it become silly and inconsiderate? A friend at church recently captioned a photo of me arriving at her son's birthday party with "super mom." I get that a lot, but often, I feel that when it comes to making these decisions, I don't make them at all. Just because I can deliver three children from point A to point B within a half-hour of an intended arrival time, in relative safety, doesn't make me super. It just makes me borderline-functional. And truth be told, it's a struggle to be just that. But I want to be more than functional. I want to honor God with what he has entrusted to me. And that is a work in progress. Much like paddling upstream. And the current only seems to be getting stronger as I go. When I hear the expression, "There just aren't enough hours in the day," I think to myself, that's not true. There are exactly enough hours, enough that you have to decide what's most important to do, and that defines what we make of ourselves. My legacy is at stake!
I've recently had the opportunity to reflect on legacies. A legacy is defined as that which a person leaves behind, and while it usually refers to the tangible, the intangible seems to matter more. My abuelo Pedro, my paternal grandfather, passed away on October 18. Pedro was born in 1925, making him the youngest of my four grandparents. He was born in Havana, Cuba, the eldest of six children born to a Spanish immigrant father and a Canary Island descendant mother. He is remembered for being meticulous about his appearance and about his belongings. Also, for being the diplomatic sibling who managed to stay out of the famous and frequent family quarrels. When he came of age, he began working for his father's petroleum delivery business and married his childhood sweetheart, a quiet girl from the neighborhood. Eventually he bought his own truck and started his own business. His first son, born in 1953, was named Pedro like him and his father before him. He was expecting his second son a year later when his father was killed in a suspicious car accident on his way to the bank. My grandfather was 28 years old; my father was born that December. As the years passed, my grandfather proved to carry his characteristic fastidiousness over into his expectations for his sons and raised them with strict, militant discipline. The business he had started for himself was nationalized in the 1960s with the implementation of Castro's communist policies. On December 12, 1966 abuelo Pedro led his family to political asylum in the U.S., where they started their lives over again in Miami Springs. He found work in the U.S. cleaning airplane parts and worked there until he was nearly 70 years old. At that time he was diagnosed with cancer and given 10 months to live. After a year of devastating chemotherapy treatments, my grandfather decided he'd rather die in peace. Shortly after celebrating his 85th birthday more than 15 years later, he suffered a stroke and died the following week.
What can be said of such a life? It was long-suffering, it was disciplined, it was virtuous in many ways. But my only memories of him are of his terribly loud snore, and of a gracious smile-- my Spanish was so poor in my later childhood that communication was limited mostly to gestures and facial expressions. Furthermore, as a child, my parents abided by the social norms of their parents when we were in their parents' company- that children were to be seen and not heard, if they must be seen at all. My brother, sister, and I would go with my parents to my abuelos' house every Sunday after church when we were growing up. But we were quickly ushered out the back door almost as quickly as we came in, to chase the chicken around the key-lime tree, to pick flowers, or to explore the cinder-block fort thing at the back of the property. I sat through the funeral service largely emotionless. Friends and family offered their condolences but I doubted that their sympathies truly reflected my own. And what of his soul? His god-daughter, a cousin of mine and a devout Catholic, said that he would talk to her about God so that he must have been a Christian. But my father says that he and his brother were forbidden to go to church, and that he never heard his father speak of God in the home. I don't know what to make of it. I've never known what to make of it. A legacy must be more than what someone leaves behind-- at some point, it must be received. I wonder what kind of legacy my grandfather meant to leave.
The weekend following my grandfather's funeral, we spent celebrating the birthdays of two great-uncles. One, my abuelo Nilo's brother, the other my abuela Angela's brother. Both turned 80 years old this year. Both happen to be especially quiet, charming men of gentle spirit. Both also happen to be especially gracious when I'm snooping around for genealogical data. They stepped out of the molds of their generation to be men who were affectionate and relatively relational. And they will someday leave behind legacies that will not be forgotten.
The next week, I was at another funeral, this time for a great-aunt. Her only son was not in her presence at the time of her death, though he had been warned with enough time to make the trip from Maryland. The whole episode reminded me of something my mom once said with regard to funerals, "Don't wait until I'm dead to show me you love me. It will do nothing for me then." Some of the family members were pretty angry- devotion to family is possibly the most sacred virtue in Hispanic homes.
Fine-tuning Dominic's costume hit me pretty late in the game. It wasn't till the day before the big night that I had a chance to try to pull something together. The result was something that was neither matador (he's missing a jacket and the sequined glory) nor Zorro (no épée, and I forgot the mask). Since Dominic had never seen anything Zorro related and I was afraid he might feel unworthy beside the other superheros in his squad, I tried to get him excited about the character by showing him episodes of the old TV series but the library didn't carry any and instead we ended up showing him scenes of the Princess Bride. So what was Dominic for Halloween?
Cristovan stayed in because he fell asleep during the commotion of getting the kids dressed after the church’s evening service on Sunday. This was Noemie’s first year trick-or-treating on foot. She suffered some social anxiety at first- the whole concept of knocking on a door and not being able to go in the house was confusing at first. She saw the candy drop into her pillowcase, but she couldn’t sit and examine it. And doors were closed in her face as quickly as they were opened. It was all too much for her and she cried for the first length of the block. She enjoyed the second stretch of the block, and by the third was tired and ready to return to her friends’ house. So we made it once around the block and that was good enough for everyone! It was a little too steamy anyway.
My to-do list always seems to out-pace me. But this is never truer than in the holiday season. At some point, I have to start deciding what is most important in my life, because if I don't than the consequences of my failures will prove that decision for me. As Danny used to tell me long ago, one shouldn't prioritize his schedule, but schedule his priorities. I can only imagine this is a new phenomenon- to be overwhelmed by competing priorities. What choices did farmers in the 1700s have to make? Do I clean the gun barrel or do I play the fiddle? I'm sure Laura Ingalls Wilder's father could do both simultaneously. But me?
Do I sleep an extra fifteen minutes or play cars with Dominic on the rug? Sit down for a cream cheese bagel breakfast, or wait till I'm too hungry to make rational decisions and grab some cookies when my tummy starts to rumble... and then lament my sugar crash half an hour later that incapacitates the rest of my morning? Read my Bible or make my square for our family's contribution to my sister-in-law's baby adoption quilt? Blog or take a nap or play the piano? Organize computer files or sweep the floor? Bake an apple pie or take the kids for a walk?
Most of my decisions (usually with the exception of breakfast) are not choosing a good thing over a bad thing. But there are a limited number of hours in a day and I at some point I have to sleep. So I hear. But when the kids are awake and playing, I have to choose how I will spend that time- whether I will spend it with them, playing with them, teaching them, singing with them, coloring with them, or if I will use those activities to distract them so I can clean, or research, or take time to breathe. There will come a day when my kids won’t be kids any more. I can't have that time back. But by the same token, if I don't scrapbook the memories now, I won’t be able to recall them when I do have the time for scrapbooking. Cristovan is five months old and I still haven't written a thank you card for the woman at church who organized meals for me the week after his birth. At some point, doesn't it become silly and inconsiderate? A friend at church recently captioned a photo of me arriving at her son's birthday party with "super mom." I get that a lot, but often, I feel that when it comes to making these decisions, I don't make them at all. Just because I can deliver three children from point A to point B within a half-hour of an intended arrival time, in relative safety, doesn't make me super. It just makes me borderline-functional. And truth be told, it's a struggle to be just that. But I want to be more than functional. I want to honor God with what he has entrusted to me. And that is a work in progress. Much like paddling upstream. And the current only seems to be getting stronger as I go. When I hear the expression, "There just aren't enough hours in the day," I think to myself, that's not true. There are exactly enough hours, enough that you have to decide what's most important to do, and that defines what we make of ourselves. My legacy is at stake!
I've recently had the opportunity to reflect on legacies. A legacy is defined as that which a person leaves behind, and while it usually refers to the tangible, the intangible seems to matter more. My abuelo Pedro, my paternal grandfather, passed away on October 18. Pedro was born in 1925, making him the youngest of my four grandparents. He was born in Havana, Cuba, the eldest of six children born to a Spanish immigrant father and a Canary Island descendant mother. He is remembered for being meticulous about his appearance and about his belongings. Also, for being the diplomatic sibling who managed to stay out of the famous and frequent family quarrels. When he came of age, he began working for his father's petroleum delivery business and married his childhood sweetheart, a quiet girl from the neighborhood. Eventually he bought his own truck and started his own business. His first son, born in 1953, was named Pedro like him and his father before him. He was expecting his second son a year later when his father was killed in a suspicious car accident on his way to the bank. My grandfather was 28 years old; my father was born that December. As the years passed, my grandfather proved to carry his characteristic fastidiousness over into his expectations for his sons and raised them with strict, militant discipline. The business he had started for himself was nationalized in the 1960s with the implementation of Castro's communist policies. On December 12, 1966 abuelo Pedro led his family to political asylum in the U.S., where they started their lives over again in Miami Springs. He found work in the U.S. cleaning airplane parts and worked there until he was nearly 70 years old. At that time he was diagnosed with cancer and given 10 months to live. After a year of devastating chemotherapy treatments, my grandfather decided he'd rather die in peace. Shortly after celebrating his 85th birthday more than 15 years later, he suffered a stroke and died the following week.
What can be said of such a life? It was long-suffering, it was disciplined, it was virtuous in many ways. But my only memories of him are of his terribly loud snore, and of a gracious smile-- my Spanish was so poor in my later childhood that communication was limited mostly to gestures and facial expressions. Furthermore, as a child, my parents abided by the social norms of their parents when we were in their parents' company- that children were to be seen and not heard, if they must be seen at all. My brother, sister, and I would go with my parents to my abuelos' house every Sunday after church when we were growing up. But we were quickly ushered out the back door almost as quickly as we came in, to chase the chicken around the key-lime tree, to pick flowers, or to explore the cinder-block fort thing at the back of the property. I sat through the funeral service largely emotionless. Friends and family offered their condolences but I doubted that their sympathies truly reflected my own. And what of his soul? His god-daughter, a cousin of mine and a devout Catholic, said that he would talk to her about God so that he must have been a Christian. But my father says that he and his brother were forbidden to go to church, and that he never heard his father speak of God in the home. I don't know what to make of it. I've never known what to make of it. A legacy must be more than what someone leaves behind-- at some point, it must be received. I wonder what kind of legacy my grandfather meant to leave.The weekend following my grandfather's funeral, we spent celebrating the birthdays of two great-uncles. One, my abuelo Nilo's brother, the other my abuela Angela's brother. Both turned 80 years old this year. Both happen to be especially quiet, charming men of gentle spirit. Both also happen to be especially gracious when I'm snooping around for genealogical data. They stepped out of the molds of their generation to be men who were affectionate and relatively relational. And they will someday leave behind legacies that will not be forgotten.
The next week, I was at another funeral, this time for a great-aunt. Her only son was not in her presence at the time of her death, though he had been warned with enough time to make the trip from Maryland. The whole episode reminded me of something my mom once said with regard to funerals, "Don't wait until I'm dead to show me you love me. It will do nothing for me then." Some of the family members were pretty angry- devotion to family is possibly the most sacred virtue in Hispanic homes.
I spent about as much time in Miami as I did in Davie the past two weeks. Two funerals, three birthday parties (which is preferable to funerals), and one very tired me. With enough time to blog? Outrageous! It must be midnight. It’s true.
Emilio's 80th birthday
1 comment:
- sorry for your loss
- the kids looked great
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