Over the last 6 years, one thing I have learned is that blood isn't the only thing that makes you family. I have been fortunate to have more than tripled the size of my family over that time under that logic. Merriam-Webster even has varying definitions of family, ranging from the usual sharing of a common ancestor to sharing common convictions or affiliations.
The point is, you don't have to be related to someone to call them your family. Whoever you associate with, who when they're in pain or suffering you share in their pain and suffering, and when they are joyful you share in their joy, that is your family. Sometimes non-blood relations are closer than blood relations. Sad to say, but this can be true.
Everyone needs family of any kind; going through this death sentence called life alone is a special kind of torture one must never subject themselves to. If we aren't going to make it out of this adventure alive, we might as well enjoy the ride in he company of others.
Yesterday marked the second year since my Grandma left to go dance with Jesus. I was blessed to have her in my life for 30 years, even if at times I didn't make the most of those 30 years. I think we are still in that "lost" phase, where the loved one is taken and we're still trying to figure out how we're going to move on with our lives. The phase where nothing seems right and the realization that nothing will be the same again is still prevalent.
The thing about family is it's always evolving. Marriages, births, deaths, meeting new people...like the weather in Wisconsin, it is constantly changing. And we are all family with God as our Father.
Just up the road from where we are staying in Alabama there is a pond in a city park. I'm not sure if it's teeming with fish or not, but suppose it is. They will forever be relegated to that pond, that will be all they know of existence. They won't know that there is so much more water to explore. And anthropomorphically speaking they'd probably be fine with that. Some people are like that too. They stay within the confines of their city or state, and they are perfectly fine with that. I'm very thankful I was blessed with the ability to travel and venture outside my city walls (if you knew my city you'd know the Department of Transportation built a bypass that is effectively a modern day "Great Wall" of sorts) and see more of the beautiful world God created. I was afforded the opportunity to immerse myself in Southern culture, even developed my own accent that'll likely stick with me for about a week. It was the first time in 6 years I have been able to travel out of state; incidentally enough to the same place, this time with a wife and kids.
Side note: a twelve hour road trip with an almost 3 year old is basically signing away a percentage of your sanity.
Showing posts with label WWWA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WWWA. Show all posts
Friday, July 29, 2016
Friday, July 8, 2016
In Which History Gets Dusted Off
Every once in a while, usually once or twice a year, the Genealogy Bug strikes me. Part and Parcel with my myriad of psychological issues is that I will obsess over something for a few hours, days, sometimes up to a couple weeks, before moving onto the next obsession. It's fun, you should be jealous. If I have to have OCD, I'm glad to have it paired up with ADD so I can obsess about a new thing each day...or week, as it were.
Anyhoobastank...so in retrospect, I feel like I have discussed this before, I'm not sure when. A quick search of my blog tells me it was the entry Without Shoes and Without Regard, in which I discussed grieving and the loss of my Grandma. You can read that entry here. That's right, I get real time up in this.
I've learned a lot from my family's history, if even some of that was contrived by my own at times hyperbolic fashion. (I may or may not have just clarified for myself today what the word hyperbole means and wanted to use it in a sentence)
Starting with my Great-Great Grandmother, the Matriarch of the Family, as it were. The stories throughout the family that I've heard, I mean, I can't decide which one I like better between my Great-Great Grandparents, who were the originators of my family in America, more specifically, Upper Michigan at first (before settling in Milwaukee, my hometown). Here is what is known as fact, with only little assumptions made (the hyperbole comes in later): Frank was in the Austrian Army in say the 1880s-1890s. The story goes, you had to have your draft card renewed, or certified, or updated every year. He lived in a small town in far southern Austria...basically a Sound of Music hike across the Alps from Slovenia...but at that time was probably part of the Tyrannosaurus Austria-Hungary Empire Rex...but I digress...and the bigger city of the area was likely Klagenfurt, or Villach, one of the two. Anyhoobastank, Frank's employer said that he would take his draft card to get certified and then bring it back to him. En route either there or back, Frank's employer lost his draft card. If you were caught in Austria at that time without your draft card, so I understand it, you were thrown back into the Austrian Army. Which apparently was the last thing Frank wanted, because he hopped a boat for America. I do not know where he landed, or even what he did from the time he made landfall, if you will, in 1901 to when he married Pauline (more on her in a moment), in 1903 in Iron Mountain, Michigan.
Pauline, on the other hand, was presumably 17 when she "made landfall" in New York City in 1900. According to my grandfather, there was a rumor (or otherwise unconfirmed story that perhaps itself might have been hyperbolic) that Pauline's father....well, wait. Let me back up a second and say what I know. Pauline's father was a traveling salesman, and he had another daughter two years Pauline's senior, who was already in America. Whether or not they knew where, I do not know. I assume based on what I'm about to say, that they did know that Anna was in Iron Mountain, Michigan. Here's the possible hyperbole: while it is true that John, the father, was a traveling salesman, what I am assuming here is his wife, Pauline's mother, died in childbirth. What I know is that she died and John was to raise Pauline as a single father in 1880s Austria-Hungary, as a traveling salesman. The rumor was he was going to drown her in the river. Nobody knows if that is true, but regardless, at the tender age of 17 she boarded a boat in Le Havre, France, headed for New York City, where she arrived on the scene in March of 1900. Census records taken in June of 1900 do not place her anywhere, and I do not know of her whereabouts at that time but picture if you will: you are 17, in a strange land, not knowing the language but knowing that somewhere in this expansive country (wherever Iron Mountain, Michigan is), waits your sister. The only one who knows you. Your mission is to find your sister, and given the sad shape of roads in the early 1900s, I can definitely see how it would take multiple months to traverse the Eastern half of this country to find your sister, deep in the coal or iron ore mines of the Northwoods of Michigan.
I think you can see where I embellish the story just a tad...but still totally plausible.
Fast forward 40 years. My grandparents are born, all growing up in the time of the Great Depression. One grandparent is living in a multi-family home, where many of the apartments are inhabited by members of her family, a large...and I mean Polish Catholic Large...family on the East Side of Milwaukee. One grandparent was born into a family who, at the time of the 1940 Census, was at least 1 year out of a job and was working for the WPA. There's where I'm concentrating now. My Great Grandma had to make do with a little to serve her family...and she taught my Grandma a lot, so I've come to understand, when she married my Grandpa. I even remember toys she'd make for me, 40 years after the Depression, made out of old wooden thread spools strung together, and rattles out of two detergent caps twisted together. She was a very resourceful lady.
There is a theory that states that some memories can be transmitted through DNA. I would subscribe to this theory, as especially from the period of time of 2013 to early 2015, I had to do just that...or at least a modern version of just that. One pot meals were basically a staple. Buttered noodles were a commonplace dinner. But we never went hungry, and we were never without the necessities. We just made do with what we had.
On the other side of the spectrum, I had a grandparent who lived with her parents and brother, who lived with the grandparents on her mom's side - something that hits home.
As I've learned in school doing some economics projects, is that the economy is cyclical. Maybe that gives credence to the "history repeats itself" mantra. It may not have obviously hit in my parents' generation, and maybe not in my generation, but for my kids' generation we have the Great Recession of 2008, and while it was in no way as bad as the Great Depression was, it still was a big economic downturn. But we survived. Just like our grandparents.
If I've learned anything from this economic downturn it is that frugality can save your family from the brink. You may have to make some unconventional decisions, decisions that other people will look at you like you're mad, but in the end - and this is the important part - with faith in God, you can trust that He will surely guide the way.
That's not to say I had perfect faith throughout this trial, or anything that would even resemble something saint-worthy. There were plenty of times that I wanted to (and sort of did) throw my hands up in the air (and not wave them around like I just didn't care) and ask the Teacher why this wasn't on the test, why such a lofty exam, like this seemed like final exams 2 weeks into the term. I knew (and still know) that He doesn't give us more than we can handle, but it truly seemed to be too much, and that's all I will say about that. Yet even through all that, the Teacher showed me just how much He is in control, and he took me on an amazing journey of faith in the process, something I will talk about in a future post.
The Teacher is always silent during a test...
However I feel like this may have been an open-book test, in that I had and still have, history to draw off of. The lessons of my forefathers, be it learned or transmitted somehow, find themselves in the passenger seat...wait okay that is a bad reference, because I was going to say waiting for my perusal, but it is not safe to read and drive. But I think you get the point.
Anyhoobastank...so in retrospect, I feel like I have discussed this before, I'm not sure when. A quick search of my blog tells me it was the entry Without Shoes and Without Regard, in which I discussed grieving and the loss of my Grandma. You can read that entry here. That's right, I get real time up in this.
I've learned a lot from my family's history, if even some of that was contrived by my own at times hyperbolic fashion. (I may or may not have just clarified for myself today what the word hyperbole means and wanted to use it in a sentence)
Starting with my Great-Great Grandmother, the Matriarch of the Family, as it were. The stories throughout the family that I've heard, I mean, I can't decide which one I like better between my Great-Great Grandparents, who were the originators of my family in America, more specifically, Upper Michigan at first (before settling in Milwaukee, my hometown). Here is what is known as fact, with only little assumptions made (the hyperbole comes in later): Frank was in the Austrian Army in say the 1880s-1890s. The story goes, you had to have your draft card renewed, or certified, or updated every year. He lived in a small town in far southern Austria...basically a Sound of Music hike across the Alps from Slovenia...but at that time was probably part of the Tyrannosaurus Austria-Hungary Empire Rex...but I digress...and the bigger city of the area was likely Klagenfurt, or Villach, one of the two. Anyhoobastank, Frank's employer said that he would take his draft card to get certified and then bring it back to him. En route either there or back, Frank's employer lost his draft card. If you were caught in Austria at that time without your draft card, so I understand it, you were thrown back into the Austrian Army. Which apparently was the last thing Frank wanted, because he hopped a boat for America. I do not know where he landed, or even what he did from the time he made landfall, if you will, in 1901 to when he married Pauline (more on her in a moment), in 1903 in Iron Mountain, Michigan.
Pauline, on the other hand, was presumably 17 when she "made landfall" in New York City in 1900. According to my grandfather, there was a rumor (or otherwise unconfirmed story that perhaps itself might have been hyperbolic) that Pauline's father....well, wait. Let me back up a second and say what I know. Pauline's father was a traveling salesman, and he had another daughter two years Pauline's senior, who was already in America. Whether or not they knew where, I do not know. I assume based on what I'm about to say, that they did know that Anna was in Iron Mountain, Michigan. Here's the possible hyperbole: while it is true that John, the father, was a traveling salesman, what I am assuming here is his wife, Pauline's mother, died in childbirth. What I know is that she died and John was to raise Pauline as a single father in 1880s Austria-Hungary, as a traveling salesman. The rumor was he was going to drown her in the river. Nobody knows if that is true, but regardless, at the tender age of 17 she boarded a boat in Le Havre, France, headed for New York City, where she arrived on the scene in March of 1900. Census records taken in June of 1900 do not place her anywhere, and I do not know of her whereabouts at that time but picture if you will: you are 17, in a strange land, not knowing the language but knowing that somewhere in this expansive country (wherever Iron Mountain, Michigan is), waits your sister. The only one who knows you. Your mission is to find your sister, and given the sad shape of roads in the early 1900s, I can definitely see how it would take multiple months to traverse the Eastern half of this country to find your sister, deep in the coal or iron ore mines of the Northwoods of Michigan.
I think you can see where I embellish the story just a tad...but still totally plausible.
Fast forward 40 years. My grandparents are born, all growing up in the time of the Great Depression. One grandparent is living in a multi-family home, where many of the apartments are inhabited by members of her family, a large...and I mean Polish Catholic Large...family on the East Side of Milwaukee. One grandparent was born into a family who, at the time of the 1940 Census, was at least 1 year out of a job and was working for the WPA. There's where I'm concentrating now. My Great Grandma had to make do with a little to serve her family...and she taught my Grandma a lot, so I've come to understand, when she married my Grandpa. I even remember toys she'd make for me, 40 years after the Depression, made out of old wooden thread spools strung together, and rattles out of two detergent caps twisted together. She was a very resourceful lady.
There is a theory that states that some memories can be transmitted through DNA. I would subscribe to this theory, as especially from the period of time of 2013 to early 2015, I had to do just that...or at least a modern version of just that. One pot meals were basically a staple. Buttered noodles were a commonplace dinner. But we never went hungry, and we were never without the necessities. We just made do with what we had.
On the other side of the spectrum, I had a grandparent who lived with her parents and brother, who lived with the grandparents on her mom's side - something that hits home.
As I've learned in school doing some economics projects, is that the economy is cyclical. Maybe that gives credence to the "history repeats itself" mantra. It may not have obviously hit in my parents' generation, and maybe not in my generation, but for my kids' generation we have the Great Recession of 2008, and while it was in no way as bad as the Great Depression was, it still was a big economic downturn. But we survived. Just like our grandparents.
If I've learned anything from this economic downturn it is that frugality can save your family from the brink. You may have to make some unconventional decisions, decisions that other people will look at you like you're mad, but in the end - and this is the important part - with faith in God, you can trust that He will surely guide the way.
That's not to say I had perfect faith throughout this trial, or anything that would even resemble something saint-worthy. There were plenty of times that I wanted to (and sort of did) throw my hands up in the air (and not wave them around like I just didn't care) and ask the Teacher why this wasn't on the test, why such a lofty exam, like this seemed like final exams 2 weeks into the term. I knew (and still know) that He doesn't give us more than we can handle, but it truly seemed to be too much, and that's all I will say about that. Yet even through all that, the Teacher showed me just how much He is in control, and he took me on an amazing journey of faith in the process, something I will talk about in a future post.
The Teacher is always silent during a test...
However I feel like this may have been an open-book test, in that I had and still have, history to draw off of. The lessons of my forefathers, be it learned or transmitted somehow, find themselves in the passenger seat...wait okay that is a bad reference, because I was going to say waiting for my perusal, but it is not safe to read and drive. But I think you get the point.
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
In Which I Uncover Regret
Regret. Merriam-Webster defines regret as "to feel sorry or sad for something you did or did not do".
Many people say they live their life with no regrets, but I tend to think that many people are fooling themselves. Everyone has to have at least one thing that they regret, even if they say they don't. I was one of those who claimed I had no regrets. But then my grandma's would-be 80th birthday rolled around. Without any other choice, I wrote her an open letter as a status on my Facebook.
Without getting into details, let me just restate that I believe everyone has at least one regret in their lives. Believing something someone said that affected how you viewed someone else. Not taking the time to do, or not do, something. Not "coming to your senses sooner" about something. Whatever the case may be, everyone has a regret. It's what you choose to do with it that makes the difference. You can bury it and forget about it, or use it. React to it. Choose to learn from it, and use the experience as a lesson. A hard lesson, perhaps. But feeling sorry for yourself because you messed up will certainly not change anything. It won't do any good either. Use the experience, use the lesson, to change your course, and avoid potential future situations which you would've otherwise continued down the same path.
This is a major duh moment. But too often people just feel sorry for themselves for the mistakes they've made and do nothing to change the way they react. And the world keeps turning, and nothing ever changes.
So as the saying goes, be the change you want to see. It sounds easy enough, yet many find it so hard to do. It takes integrity to pull it off. There's a reason and a purpose for everything. We can't see the big picture, only glimpses and corners. Frustrating? Most definitely. But we slowly get to see more of it as it comes into focus.
It's easy enough to say...why is it at times hard to do? I find myself a victim of this train of thought too. I know I want to do something, but the ghosts of those regrets come back with a vengeance. Say it to yourself. Be the change you want to see. If others can't or won't accept it, so be it.
Monday, October 6, 2014
On Daring to Dream
If there's one trait I love, it's the trait that ignores the realists and those who dash dreams, and chases that dream anyway, because now they've got someone to prove wrong. And they won't stop until they accomplish that goal.
Cases in point
My grandma told me these stories...She was going to take my two older cousins to get their ears pierced back in the day and she thought about getting a piercing herself. Grandpa says "What do you need another hole in the head for?" Guess what she got...yup. This other time, my great-grandmother (or possibly great-great, not sure) asked her husband, my great-grandfather, who was an electrician, to put a light in above the sink, as she wanted more light when working there. Great Grandpa said it wouldn't work, it couldn't be done, it'd be too difficult to cut a hole. So one day while he was at work, she took my great grandfather's tools and cut herself a nice light-sized hole in the ceiling. Upon returning home from work she said "the hole is there, now put in my light."And that's the lesson to be learned. Don't let anybody tell you that you are incapable of doing something, or that something is 'impossible'.
"You'll never finish that puzzle."
"You can't build things, what makes you think you can build a house?"
"That's impossible"
"That's a stupid idea..."
You now have someone or some people to prove wrong. Make them eat their words.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Dedicated to the WWWA
The Beauty of an ADD/OCD/Aspy brain is that one gets to obsess about a different thing each day...or week...or more...depends on what the topic is and how hard one's attention span is focused on it. Usually though, at least a few times a year I will come back to that particular topic; Family History is a big perennial topic of mine, for example. Dig my use of the semi-colon with this post, huh!?
**[insert subtle segue here]**
The self-proclaimed Wicked Witch of West Allis found her dancing shoes 5 days after my birthday this year, and is dancing with Jesus as we speak. The whole thing is somewhat of a blur to me, everything happened so fast. At Midnight, I was told that she was being put on comfort measures, and that she did not have long. By 1:30, she was at the Ball meeting her dance partner. I got the call, and suddenly there was no one left standing in the hall. I never realized until just recently how pertinent Stevie Nick's words were to my life at that moment in time, and thus her song has an entirely new meaning for me. In fact I'm listening to the song as I type.
Since the inception of this blog, along with my "never-ending quest for knowledge", I have also discovered a lot about myself--overlooked facts, character traits (both good and not so good), pieces of my very essence that I'd never realized before. I've also learned to recognize my quirks, and to love them. The Idiom Idiocy, the Numbers Mysticism, The Even-Numbered Pattern Program and the like...I've learned to use them for my advantage, to become the "force of nature" it has become my mission to be.
At the Homily for my grandmother, Father Augustine had said that Grandma had a "magic knife", in that there was always enough food for everyone--and they had a family of 8 to feed at one point in time--and no one was ever in want of a need. That struck a chord with me. Since Grandma left for the dance, I've tried to emulate her, and thus I say I have a "Magic Spoon", in honor of her. I cook a lot of One-Pot meals that always leave enough for others, or for leftovers. I've definitely learned how to make just $60 of groceries stretch over two weeks, $100 stretch over four, and none of us have gone hungry, or are in want of a need. I've also learned to go back to basics...why spend $4 for a box of crackers when you can spend a fraction of that and make your own? They'll undoubtedly have less preservatives and GMOs and what have you, and really it's not that hard.
Most Moms and Grandmas, even some Dads and Grandpas, are famous for one thing. "Grandma makes the best Peanut Butter cookies, no one makes them like her..." I have recently discovered what I will most undoubtedly become "famous" for. Crackers. My children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren (if my wish of living to at least the ripe old age of 117 holds up), will know me best for my cracker making. Truly it all started with less than $2 in our checking account, and our pantry in need of some sort of snack type thing. I've become an advocate for buying local, making it myself, and with the crackers, there are so many possibilities...I knew we had flour, I figured crackers couldn't be hard to make...why pay $4 a box when you don't have to (or can't, for that matter)? Same holds true for coffee creamer and butter (although the latter almost killed my food processor).
Self-sufficiency isn't hard, and if you're hell-bent on doing it, you'll find a way to make it work. You don't have to go to all the specialty stores and buy only organic flour that was pressed and ground by an elephant's hoof and picked by 47 children in the Garden of Eden (if you go there you're bound to get wet). I may start a separate blog with my new-found Self Sufficient recipes, as well as recipes I'm dreaming up that are still in their beta stages..though with the rate I've been posting blogs, don't expect it till early 2016...I exaggerate, of course.
Love your quirks. Don't ever let anyone make you feel any less of a person for them. I am not quite to the point about not giving a flying fart what people think of me, but I'm pretty close. You have your family, and those who love you for you, really who else are you out there to impress, a bunch of fake people that are secretly judging you? Those who look down their noses at you for who you are or where you come from? You do you, and if that's not enough then there is just no pleasing them...don't ever think you need to live up to anyone else's expectations on this earth. There's only One whose example we should follow, and He happens to be my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So I say again, love your quirks. Don't change a thing. Be You. Do You. Quirks and all. After all, you wouldn't BE you without them. Why be a carbon copy of every other Joe walking the streets where you live? Be You. Do You. Love the things that others will (undoubtedly) find "less than perfect"...after all, that's what we all are. Less Than Perfect. The One Perfect One died for all your real imperfections, so really what have you got to lose?
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