With great glee, I announce the sling has come off and I’m typing again.
So, here’s the first issue of JuleWardWrites for the new year (if you are like me and your year begins when the first flowers pop their heads out of the grass.
Those stories inspired other to write to me with permission to share their own stories of their equally wonderful “Mis” experiences.
Many of the people who love Misericordia are those who volunteer there. Today one of them, Terry Baugh, tells you his story.
hearts and flour
“Misericordia held a warm place in my heart even before I heard about the Hearts and Flour Bakery. My friends, Barb and Dave, had undertaken a long and nearly impossible search to find a nurturing place for their son, Seth, to live. When he was accepted at “Les Mis” as they fondly refer to it, the search ended, and Barb moved to Chicago to be close to Seth. Visiting Barb in Chicago and volunteering at the bakery was a great opportunity for me to catch up with my friend and spend a week working hard and feeling great about every day.”
hairnet? apron? gloves? go!
Volunteering for the bakery at Misericordia was a satisfying experience in giving back for Terry. The bakery is a hub of activity, with experienced bakers and novices, like him. He volunteered in 2019 just before the holidays. Christmas music played in the background and staff and volunteers and residents cheerily greeted each other as new people arrived for their shifts. Got a hairnet or hat? Apron? Gloves? You are ready to go.
just like downtown
The organization of the bakery was–and is — amazing. Every step for baking, cutting, and packaging is well thought out. It was fun to package soda bread, operating a packaging machine just like the bakery downtown. Over the days, Terry was there, he worked on a lot of different stations, but he loved the brownies the most. Bakers mixed large batches of brownies, baked sheets of brownies, and finally flipped them to prepare for cutting into heart shapes. There is a proper technique to getting all the hearts you can out of a sheet and then evenly powdering them with a gentle tap on the sifter. Packaging is always part of the production cycle — stacking the brownies in boxes and sending them on their way to treat a lucky recipient. They are such a delicious and simple treat!
sister rock-star
Beyond all the baking tasks, Terry loved being at Misericordia and seeing the operation. “Sister Rosemary has rock-star status in my book.,” he claims. “The caring staff, the amazing facilities, and the meaningful ways of raising money that Sister Rosemary created to support this amazing facility is something to admire.”
working the line
Besides the unique operations of the bakery, Terry met some lovely people while “working the line”. Weekly regular volunteers, school groups, families whose children were at “Les Mis”, or had passed on, were there helping and sharing wonderful stories. And he loved visiting Seth’s house, his classroom, and meeting his friends and the residents who helped the bakery.
make giving easy
Take a hint from Terry, “if you are looking for a way to give back, a way to spend an extra afternoon or day a week, or a way to open your heart — consider volunteering at the “Les Mis” Hearts and Flour Bakery. They also make gift giving easy. Shop here! ”
right now because my arm is in a swing I’m doing all my composing by dictating and for me that doesn’t lend itself to very creative writing, so for now I’ll be taking a break from blogging. my arm should heal by the mid-March I will begin publishing again then.
For thirty years, our family shared the care of our two of our children, Kristin and Johnny, with Misericordia Home, a residential and learning center for persons with multiple developmental disabilities. Many treasured memories of our family’s time at Misericordia live in my heart, but the ones I remember best are times when its generosity of spirit lit up like a giant Christmas tree.
a giving heart
In 1985, when we took our son John for his first visit to the school, we shared a dinner with a friendly group of fellows in one of the Village Homes. At the end of dinner, one resident pushed back his chair. “I’d like to stay and have desert with you,” he said, “but it’s my night to volunteer at the homeless shelter.” His words solidified my trust that Johnny would find love and empathy among his new housemates.
heart big enough for the entire world
Some years later, the students at the Learning Center engaged in a geography program which focused deeply on one nation each year. Through their studies, they became aware of hunger in the world. This realization heightened the gratitude they felt for the abundance of care they received at Misericordia and motivated them to help those less favored. With their teachers’ help, they organized an on-campus “Walk for Hunger.” Family and friends pledged funds to support the walk.
please, stay off the grass
Johnny’s dad remembers that bright October day as though it happened last week. The residents, staff, and some parents gathered outside the Learning Center. Sister Rosemary gave a rousing opening talk–and then asked the participants to stay off the grass because landscapers had recently seeded the lawns.
the last shall be first
Johnny’s pace was a slow slouch in the best of times. So, his dad had stationed them at what he believed to be the end of the line. But no, at the end of her speech, Sister pointed out the direction of the walk. It put Jay and Johnny at the front! For a while Johnny set the pace, but then Sister broke ranks and walked on the grass to get around him! Soon, everyone followed suit. By the time father and son arrived back at the school’s gym, the organizers were putting away the refreshments. That didn’t matter, the spirit of joy and generosity of the day still lives in my husband’s stories, which he is willing to share with anyone who will listen.
Neither of us ever tires of telling the world how blessed we are to be a part of the Misericordia family.
This won’t be in the memoir even though it completely changed my life.
baby number three
On an unusually mild January morning in 1973, I awoke to the powerful tug of a contraction across my belly. Our third child would be born that day. Jay and I determined we didn’t want to spend the entire day in a hospital. We calmly woke Kristy, age three and a half, and Carrie, age two, and fed them their breakfast. By the time we called Jay’s mother, the contractions were coming closer together. While we waited for their grandmother to arrive and watch the girls for us, I sat in our big oak rocking. Kristy and Carrie nestled around my belly, and I gently sang and rocked to soothe them and myself.
labor at the movies
“Gramma Mary,” as they called her, arrived in a half hour. Jay and I hurried out and went – to the movies. (We didn’t, of course, tell his mom where we were going.) The film Sleuth, with Michael Caine, was playing at the Hinsdale Cinema. Its suspenseful plot let my mind ride above the increasingly intense and rapid contractions. When a contraction started, I’d grip Jay’s hand, he’d look at his watch, time it and whisper the duration to me. The solution to the mystery eluded me, and I was determined to remain until the movie ended. We heard loud whispers in the row behind us. One of which was a shocked, “I think she’s having a baby.”
off to the hospital
Movie over, we sped to the hospital. When the emergency room nurses realized the intensity of the contractions, they summoned the obstetrician. They sent Jay straight to registration and me right into Labor and Delivery.
There, a resident doctor examined me. “She’s nine centimeters and dilating rapidly. Have you called her obstetrician?” he demanded.
“Yes.” a nurse replied. “As soon as emergency informed us they thought she was pretty far along.”
“Good, well, get her husband up here. He can do the paperwork later. This baby is coming now.”
Two interns slid me onto a gurney for the hurried ride to the delivery room. Jay in his heavy khaki overcoat and Dr. Halama, my obstetrician, rushed through doors at opposite ends of the room like a choreographed scene in a stage play. My doctor wore a tuxedo, which the nurses helped him cover with a surgical gown. I laughed, “Where were you?”
And then I gasped in pain. I panted through the contraction, trying my best to keep my breathes even. Jay stood at my side, holding my hand and gripping it so hard it hurt. Hospital regulations had prevented him from being present for Kristy or Carrie’s births, so we had changed doctors and hospitals so that he could witness this one. The enormous pressure in back and lower belly subsided a little. I repeated my question to the doctor.
birth of our party girl
He laughed. “I was at the cocktail hour before a friend’s dinner party. This baby is making me miss out on fresh lobster.”
“In January, that’s ridiculous.” I retorted, and then gasped again. “Count,” I shouted to Jay and tried to pant in rhythm with his slow, “1…2… 3.”
Dr. Halama wheeled his stool over to the bottom of the delivery table. “The baby is crowning,” he said. A nurse stepped to either side of him, instruments I couldn’t see in their hands.
“There’s the head,” he announced. Excitement blocked my sense of pain, but my body contracted and shoved.
“Slow down. Try not to push. I’m easing a shoulder out,” the doctor said.
A nurse turned to me. “I’m sure it’s a girl. She has such a beautiful face.”
Across from her, the other nurse shook her head. “No, look at those broad shoulders. It’s going to be a boy.”
“Just let me push,” I begged. “Then we can settle this.”
“Just a minute. There, got the other shoulder. Good work. Okay, one last push.”
I bore down with all my strength, felt the pressure of the little body sliding down the birth canal, and seconds later, a high-pitched cry filled the room. “You have a girl,” the doctor told us, holding up the screaming, failing little human being.
hello betsy!
“Give her to me,” I demanded. I couldn’t stand to see her cry. They cut the cord, wrapped her in a soft blanket, and laid her next to me. “Hello, Betsy,” I whispered.
Betsy’s birth was the catalyst for an unanticipated upheaval. She and I remained at the hospital for three days. She had been born on Saturday evening at 6 o’clock. On Sunday, Jay brought Kristy and Carrie to the hospital to visit their new sister. They couldn’t visit the maternity floor, but the baby room had windows along a corridor outside the ward. I stood on the other side of the nursery and watched as the nurse rolled Betsy’s bassinet up to the window, lifted her out, and showed her to the toddlers on the other side. The tiny bundle instantly fascinated Kristy, but Carrie caught sight of me. She lifted her arms and wailed, “Mommy.”
a trip to the zoo
To distract Carrie, Jay took the girls on an excursion to the Lincoln Park Zoo. It was unusually mild for a Chicago January that week. Going to the zoo was a logical choice of diversion. The Brookfield Zoo, however, was much closer to our home in Western Springs. Still, Jay drove to the Chicago Loop and then north to Lincoln Park. He wanted to take his children to the city zoo, the one that held many fond memories of our pre-suburban days.
As far as I know, they had a wonderful time, but I never really heard about the zoo at all because what followed was much more momentous. On the way back to where he had parked our car, Jay passed a “For Rent” sign in the window of a building that sat on the south edge of Lincoln Park. It stopped him cold.
When he and I had frequented the Zoo in the early years of our marriage, we always admired these stately buildings that lined the south end of Lincoln Park. He couldn’t resist taking a peek. He fell in love with the apartment and discovered, much to his surprise, that the rent was in our price range. Wheels started turning in his head.
Jay has questions
That evening, he left the girls with his mom and rushed to the hospital, full of his discovery. Betsy and I had spent a quiet day. She was a champion nurser, and I knew enough about breastfeeding by then to let her nurse at will. Well rested and feeling at ease with the world when he arrived, I listened calmly as his story burst forth. He finished with, “I want you to see this place. It is unbelievable!”
By the following Saturday, one week later, I was exhausted. Jay’s mom had returned home. He was back at work. Juggling the needs of three small girls was exponentially harder than caring for two little ones.
Jay had made an appointment for us to view the city apartment that afternoon. Tired as I was and as crazy as it seemed to take three small children, one merely a week old, out into the rapidly dropping temperatures of a Chicago winter, I needed to get out of the house. Any excuse would do. The ride would entertain the girls, and I could nurse the baby on the way to the city. As we sped east on the Eisenhower Expressway, it was with growing excitement that I watched the skyscrapers of Chicago’s Loop fill the horizon. We swung around Buckingham Fountain. Its ornate sculpture encased in ice delighted Kristy and Carrie. While we drove north along Lake Shore Drive, they both pressed their little noses against the window to watch the crashing waves of the winter lake.
The rental agent waited for us at the central door of the apartment complex. There was no elevator, but the apartment was on the first floor. Its spaciousness overwhelmed me. Twice as large as our home in Western Springs, it had twelve-foot high ceilings in every room but the kitchen. The rooms included a formal library with its own fireplace. Painted buckled on walls. The kitchen appliances were decisively vintage. Doors squeaked on their hinges. The bathroom floors had cracked tiles–but there were three bathrooms!
But I questioned. Why are we here? We have a home. We’re settled, right? Betsy had been whimpering throughout the tour. Kristy and Carrie ran from one empty room to the next as though in a gymnasium. Without warning, the noise, or maybe my increasing uneasiness, got to Betsy. She let out a loud, piercing wail.
“We have to go,” I told Jay.
“We’ll get back to you,” he promised the agent.
the choice we didn’t see coming
We rode back to Western Springs in silence. After dinner, Jay walked across the living room floor singing to Betsy while I gave the girls their bath and got them to bed.
Once I returned to the living room, I settled in a huge armchair, a Salvation Army find, so comfortable that we still have it today. I nursed Betsy off and on over the next two hours. Jay made us cocoa. And we talked. We relived every detail of the apartment and imagined how we would live there, how each room would function for us, how we could decorate it. Our imagination pictured living in the city again, close to the zoo, the park and the lake. Jay spoke of how easy it would be to get to work.
What was holding us in Western Springs? We definitely didn’t plan to stay for the rest of our lives. But didn’t we need to stay in the suburbs for the sake of the excellent schools? Maybe. We had just assumed that, hadn’t we? Kristy was only three, two years away from kindergarten. That gave us plenty of time to explore the city school situation.
By ten o’clock, we were ready to move. “I’ll call the agent in the morning,” Jay said. But when he called the next morning, the rental agent told us another family had rented the apartment late Saturday evening. That stunned us both. I fixed breakfast in silence. He hunched over his scrambled eggs and bacon. I held Betsy in the crock of one arm so I could nurse while I encouraged Carrie to eat some eggs from a spoon. Kristy pushed her eggs around in patterns on her plate.
When he finished, Jay sat straight up in his chair. “It wasn’t about the apartment–not really. We’re still moving back to the city, right?”
“Life happens while you are making other plans” is a popular cliché, but for me the true theme of my life was, “Life happens because you aren’t able to plan.” Sometimes, I simply failed to take the time to think ahead and work out the consequences to decisions I made. Other times, insurmountable barriers blocked the path I chose, and I had to re-navigate my life. This pattern began when I was twenty-three and my gynecologist upturned my world with the news that I might be infertile. Until his fateful words, I expected to wait to have a child until I finished my education and established myself professionally. Instead, I put my career plans on hold and threw myself into trying to get pregnant.
professional promise in an envelope
Exactly one year later, I was home from work sick with the flu, but new life bloomed in our tiny abode. I had not conceived, but our cat, Champagne, had. Fuzzy, grey-striped kittens cavorted in every corner of our living room. The kittens couldn’t hold my attention, however, because earlier that afternoon, I’d pulled a bulging envelope from our mailbox. Addressed to my husband Jay, it was from the Illinois Bar Association. Thick meant it had papers for him to sign, which signaled he had passed the bar.
Tense with excitement, I counted the minutes until he would arrive home from work and see the envelope sitting in the middle of the card table. Following his June graduation from law school, he accepted a position as an Assistant State’s Attorney, but keeping the job depended on passing the bar. He’d be over the moon. He loved his job, its fast-paced rhythm, the intricacy of the court system, the dealings with police, judges, defense attorneys, and defendants. Every day he headed out the door affirmed in his choice of profession.
one more wish
I pulled my knees up to my chin, and Champagne jumped from my lap to check on her little ones. As I waited for Jay to appear on the walk outside our apartment, I couldn’t help wish I was pregnant. Then everything would be perfect.
We hadn’t shared my infertility with our families, but they were asking questions. Barrenness sounded biblical to me, not a condition of the twentieth century. Yet, here I sat, an apparently healthy twenty-four-year-old with a womb as unresponsive as Sarah’s in the Old Testament. Champagne jumped back up and rubbed against me. “Too bad you’re not an angel in disguise,” I told her. “Maybe you’d be the one sent to tell me God had answered my prayer.” Her deep green eyes held mine solemnly. I could have sworn she understood.
The front doorknob rattled. Jay was home! I sat perfectly still, anticipating the moment he’d see the letter. But he walked right by the table and up to me, “Feeling any better this evening? … Oh!” he jumped because he almost squished a kitten under his heavy work shoes.
“I’m fine,” I said. “More than fine.”
He twisted his head, “What’s that grin about?”
“Look on the table!”
“Holy smokes. Is it THE letter?”
I nodded. He grabbed and ripped it open. And jumped, hitting the ceiling with both hands. “Passed! I passed. Your husband’s a real lawyer now, honey.”
celebration time
Euphoria swept over us. We ignored the budget and ordered Chinese takeout. We celebrated and talked past midnight. How strange it would be to be financially stable. Passing the bar assured him an immediate, substantial raise. By the next week, his salary would double what I brought home. It made our heads swim to think what that could mean. Dreams piled onto one another like a child’s house of blocks, colorful and covered with dozens of images.
Then at some point he ventured, “We could start saving to buy a house, one big enough for kids.”
My heart froze. “If we have children… if not, it would feel empty living in a house, just the two of us.”
He took both my hands in his. “Jule, it’s only been a year. Dr. Grimes says your body had to heal from the surgery before we can count on any eggs being produced. It’s important you don’t get negative. That’ll just stress you out and make things worse.”
I leaned against him. One of things I loved about him was his optimism, but I wished wouldn’t make infertility sound like something that would just fix itself. I was just so tired of living my life in a holding pattern while his life moved forward in such a defined direction.
“Maybe I should leave Children’s Division. Take a break. The doctor suggested that maybe the stress of the job was contributing to my problems.”
“But you love what you do.”
“I enjoy helping kids have a better life than they could have, but I don’t love the struggle. They can’t be with their natural families because all kinds of awful things happened to them there. And yet, they very often yearn to go “home” no matter how caring their foster family is. There’s never a truly suitable answer. After three years at the agency, I am understanding why some of the older caseworkers are so jaded.”
a possible new future
“But what would you do if you quit?”
“I could go to school full time instead of just at night.” Where had that come from? Had I been chafing all along, frustrated by the slow pace of my crawl toward a bachelor’s degree?
“Could we afford it if you quit?”
My heart clenched a little that his first response was practical rather than supportive, but the rest of me was roiling with excitement. I wasn’t giving up on this idea. “Let me work on it, okay? I just need to juggle the budget a bit.”
He looked over at the letter propped against the salt and pepper shakers. “Tonight, though, we’ll celebrate this victory. Your next campaign can start tomorrow.”
He reached over and ran a finger down my cheek to my chin, traced the outline of my neck down to the barely visible crevice between my breasts. Keeping his hand in place, he stood, circled the table, and bent over me. “I think I’m ready for bed,” he said. “How about you?”
I leaned all the way back to stare into his grinning face. “This would be a perfect night to become parents,” I murmured.
“Can’t hurt to try it,” he agreed.
the hard part
A month later, I stood, shoulders back, arms at my side, fists clenched just outside the door of my supervisor’s office. I admired and respected Mrs. Geis not just for the keen understanding she brought to our work, but how sensitively and deftly she molded untried young women, barely into their twenties, into capable, caring but effective caseworkers.
I dreaded telling her I planned to quit, to leave behind the children that had grown to be like nieces and nephews to me, the fosters mothers that “mothered” me even as they cared for the children I brought them. Building these relationships took time and dedication. Every time a caseworker left the agency, the families in their caseload experienced disruption, sometimes serious enough to capsize a placement.
Resigning felt like a betrayal.
Over the last two weeks, I had created a budget that would allow me to quit working for the six months it would take to earn my degree and to pay for the courses. But I shrunk from taking the next step.
“Mrs. Ward, did you need something?” My eyes flew open. The petite Mrs. Geis stood in her doorway not a foot away.
“Oh, I, ah,… I need to talk to you.” I felt like a schoolgirl called to the principal’s office.
“Come in then. You are pale as milk. It must be serious. I hope you’re not ill again.” She laid a small hand on my arm.
“No, no, I’m fine.” Silence gripped me.
“Sit down, please. You’re clearly agitated,” she said and closed her door. She sat on the other side of her battered wooden desk. Suddenly, a sweet grin broke out on her narrow face. “Are you expecting a baby?”
I wished I could lie. Being pregnant was a better reason than just quitting. I could not, however, sit there forever saying nothing. “No, I’m not having a baby.”
“Oh, my dear, I’m sorry to hear that. I know how badly you’ve been hoping for a child.”
Her concern for me drew a sigh. “But I am leaving Children’s Division.”
She nodded her head slowly. “I’ve noticed that you seem strained lately. If a case is particularly troublesome, I might step in.”
“No, it’s not that at all.” I didn’t want her to think I simply couldn’t cope. “I need to finish college. It’s just so slow going to night school. If I switch to full-time in January, I’ll graduate next August.”
“A wise decision, I agree. Can you make it work financially?” she asked.
“We can, unless I get pregnant. That would be a whole different ball game. But I’m not going to just sit around and wait for it to happen.” Both my hands flew into the air. “With my husband done with school and working, we can swing the tuition and a little sabbatical from work for me.”
“As much as we’ll miss you, I applaud this move.”
“Thank you for understanding.” I stood, eager to leave, but at the doorway I turned. “Telling the foster mothers I work with is going to be even harder than telling you.”
one of many new beginnings
We couldn’t know when I started classes at Roosevelt University in January, 1967, while Jay moved to the Narcotics Court at the State’s Attorney’s office that we had laid the cornerstone of our marriage.
From that day until he resigned from his law firm in 2007, Jay would pursue his professional life with unwavering dedication. For however many hours of each day it took, for however many days of each week it required, he devoted them to being a successful attorney.
During that same period, my life spun in kaleidoscopic cycles.
For the last eighteen months, I’ve been inviting you to come along as I struggle to write a memoir. The memoir focuses mostly on the challenges and special joys of parenting my two children with disabilities. But I cannot isolate those experiences from the rest of my life.
I must, however, limit the number of pages-and, therefore, the number of tales I tell. Twenty original chapters slimmed down to twelve as I came close to the final version. So, some of those tidbits will appear as blog posts here on “Jule Ward Writes.” As the final version of the memoir shapes up, you and enjoy these vignettes. Maybe they will even whet your appetite for reading the book when I publish it.
To Be A Dolphin
“When I grow up, I want to be a dolphin,” my three-year-old son stated emphatically as I read him a picture book about adult occupations. Me, too, I thought, oh, me too!
Although thirty-eight years old and the mother of four young children, I still wondered when I would grow up. When would my real life begin? Could I possibly wake up and this nightmare I had stumbled into be over? I hugged his sturdy, warm body against my chest, rested my chin on his soft curls, and gazed into our little side garden. His sisters would return from school in an hour. From then until bedtime, a sort of low-key chaos would fill our old Victorian rowhouse. And that was the best-case scenario. That was if no one–not me, not my little boy, and not his oldest sister Kristy had a seizure.
epilepsy reality
If one of us went down, the chaos spiraled down into pandemonium. All other activity ceased. And God help us if there was soup boiling on the stove or a bathtub filling with bubbles. That couldn’t matter. First, turn the seizing person to their side, so they didn’t choke on their own saliva. Then, slip something soft under their head to avoid nasty bruises, and grab a clean towel if they were bleeding. Next, loosen their clothing so they could breathe a little easier. And wait. Wait until their limbs stopped flailing, their eyes returned to the center of their sockets, and their breath slowed to a more normal pace. And wait some more. Wait until they could get to a chair or bed to rest and come back to us, wake up, confused and sleepy, but ultimately fine. Or so we hoped.
On this autumn afternoon in 1980, my toddler son and I squeezed together in a singularly uncomfortable mesh and metal lawn lounger; his chubby legs anchored mine in place. A dozen large, hardcover books covered our laps. Johnny’s favorite, “Oh, What a Busy Day!” lay open to a page where winsomely drawn children imagined themselves as doctors, ballerinas, sailors, chef, and other sundry paying occupations. Clearly my son found the imagination of the illustrator quite limited as he announced, “When I grow up, I want to be a dolphin.”
never grow up
I nuzzled my nose into his yellow gold curls and thought, “And why not?” Deep between my heart and lungs lodged the certainty that evolving into a sea creature might be the only way I could keep from drowning in the reality of my everyday life.
I lived my here and now as a bizarre paradox. To an outside observer, it would seem I lived the life of a typical late twentieth-century middle-class, stay-at-home mom. Yet, every day, I woke up in terror that I lacked the resources to fulfill my role. An illusionist, a trickster, I pulled coping mechanisms out of my ringmaster’s hat, creating a chimera of a brave, but beautiful life. I may have wanted to cry out, “I’ll never make it out of here alive,” but I said, “I’ve got this. It’s not that different from anyone else’s life, not really.”
brave front
My false optimism persuaded far too many people that I didn’t need their help, didn’t want their solace, would hate their compassion. There is no such thing as “normal,” I convinced myself. Everyone’s life has challenges. Everyone had to cope. I never wished to be someone else, to have a different life, to have different children. Rather, I yearned to live this life with as much savoir faire as everyone thought I did.
“Earth to Mom.”
Oh my God, the girls were home from school. I hadn’t heard them come through the back gate. Johnny had drifted to sleep in my arms, undoubtedly dreaming of dolphins.
“Kristy’s bus will be here soon, Mom,” Carrie’s voice broke into my reverie.
I carefully slid Johnny’s plump, warm body onto the chaise lounge. “Stay with him. I’ll go meet the bus and then we can have snacks.”
My favorite guest blogger, intrepid world traveler, Nancy Louise, shares a favorite story with us this week.
a half-century ago
Fifty-one years ago my newly minted husband, and I took off on a month long round-the-world honeymoon courtesy of a Trans World Airlines interline rate of $98 each!
I had been working in the airline industry; my husband, Frits, was working for a tour wholesaler designing tours to Europe and the Middle East.
Our third stop on the journey was Israel. I had traveled a bit in Europe… but this was my first time to venture further. I was 24 years old and having grown up in the Bible Belt of the South in the US — I had never even met a Jew — much less a Muslim. Or a Palestinian.
overcoming naivete
My entire “understanding” of Israel was based on Leon Uris novels and gorgeous Paul Newman playing the lead in the movie, “Exodus”.
Frits had a business contact, Emil, in Israel and had written him (yes, an actual letter in the mail!) asking him to make us a hotel reservation. We arrived in Tel Aviv on New Year’s Eve of 1971.
Emil was there at the airport to meet us. He informed us we would not be staying at a hotel. We were going to stay with his family!
Emil lived in Jerusalem near the top of the Mount of Olives (next door to the Papal delegate). We pulled into his yard, which overlooked the Old City just at midnight as the bells of Churches pealed out the New Year. It is a treasured memory.
We stayed five days with Emil and his wife,Um Hani Abu-Dayyaeh. Emil gave us our own private tour guide, driver and car with Palestinian license plates. It was an eye-opening experience. Our guide, Mohammed, was a Palestinian Muslim who knew the Christian sites and their meaning better than most Christians did. With our Palestinian license plates, the Israeli military stopped us every half hour for “security” purposes. Mohammed also had to caution us frequently on taking photos of anything thing or person who could be construed as our “spying” on the Israelis. We were quite oblivious.
Emil and Um Hani also took us to a Palestinian Refugee camp—a sobering sight that I would never forget.
struggle to survive
In the evenings Emil and his wife shared with us their lives and struggles to live in a country that had been Palestine when they were born—- and was now Israel. Emil had sent his two sons to study in the United States to keep them out of the constant conflict between Israel and Palestine. That had been a painful decision, but one he felt necessary for their safety.
The family had lost everything in 1948 and again in the “Six Day War”of 1967. In January of 71 when we visited — Emil was unsure if his once more struggling tour company would survive. He and his wife were Christians—Lutherans — specializing in Christian Pilgrimages. And tourism hugely depends on the stability of the country.
Frits continued to work with Emil for the next two years, but then we moved from Michigan to Chicago, Frits joined KLM Airlines, and we lost contact with Emil.
many returns but no re-encounters
Over the years I have returned to the Holy Land a half dozen times mostly as a Tour Director, which allowed me no private time to hunt up the Abu-Dayyaeh family.
Now retired, I thought I had done my last tour of Israel. I was, however, persuaded in the summer of 2022 to join friends through Loyola University to come back for one last visit—a full-fledged pilgrimage.
Our itinerary was to include a dinner with students from a Palestinian University and a group of Palestinian Lutherans. My thoughts went back to that first trip and Emil and Um Hani. Their first names were the only ones I remembered. I thought, “How big could the Lutheran Palestinian community be in Israel?” I knew Emil had most probably gone “home to God” by now. It had been fifty-one years ago—and Emil had been well into his 50s when I met him. I wondered though if anyone would remember this hard-working, dedicated man and his family. So I texted Frits and asked him for the name of the fledgling company that Emil had started. Frits responded, “Near East Tours”.
an extraordinary coincidence
I was standing beside my tour bus when I got the text. And there in BIG letters on the side of the bus were the letters “NET”. I went up to our driver, Haseem, also wearing a shirt emblazoned with “NET” and asked him if “NET” stood for Near East Tours. He replied. “Yes it does!” “And was the founder named Emil? ” Haseem confirmed that Emil’s company was now owned by the two sons. One son, Hani, would be at the dinner that evening.
Hani and I had dinner together at our special gathering that night. I regaled him with my memories of that first Holy Land visit courtesy of his family—and how that eye-opening journey profoundly impacted my life and would lead me to be involved for many years in Interfaith endeavors with a group called “Soul Space,” of Jewish, Muslim and Christian women — with a mission of sharing the commonalities of our faiths through mini-retreats.
Hani informed me that his Mom, Um Hani, was still very much alive. Indeed, she had worked every day in the office until Covid hit! And at 96 she still lived independently in that same house where we had stayed.
full-circle experience
I asked Hani if she was still up to having visitors. I wanted to thank her for that life-changing visit so long ago. He called her there and then… and the next afternoon our driver, Haseem, took me in his own car up for a visit. When Haseem dropped me off, I told him I would probably only be a half hour. After all… she was 96 years old! When he returned… Um Hani had barely gotten started! Haseem joined me — and we sat riveted, listening to the stories of the very long life of this remarkable woman. Near East Tours had not only survived — it had thrived — expanding throughout the Mediterranean — to such places as Greece, Turkey, and Egypt.
It has been a “full-circle” life event for me. My first… and what for sure will be my last visit to the Holy Land impacted so much by this wonderful family.
I have long treasured these words from Mark Twain: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness” That journey was my first proof of Twain’s truth.
Over the years, Nancy’s friends and family have urged her to record her experience as a memoir. She has had so many, she feels she doesn’t know where to start. I think the theme of “Then and Now” could be a wonderful organizer for her writings. Let us know in the comments if you agree.
If one imagines a hero’s journey for authors, then your dark night of the soul is probably when no one believes in your work except yourself.
Jane Friedman <jf@janefriedman.com
Coming to the end of a first full edit of the memoir I’ve been writing for two years, I spiraled down into a dark night of despair. Who but me believed in my projected book? Was I my only audience?
In her blog, Electric Speed, Jane notes writers can fall prey to the temptation to internalize the “NO” they receive from editors or publishers. (Jane Friedman, August 5, 2022)
I have found one can also internalize the critiques that one receives from fellow writers, those colleagues you ask to access your work.
a sign from the universe?
If we treat that “NO” like a “sign from the universe” that our work doesn’t make the grade, our life as a writer can end right there. A chance encounter or an unexpected opportunity could reverse your fortune, but that’s not the likely outcome. What we need is the more straightforward solution—turn up the volume of your dedication to your work.
Straight forward, yes. Easy, no.
For that reason, Friedman suggests authors think of this task in terms of a “Hero’s Journey.” What is a “Hero’s Journey?” It’s a literary device that breaks a character’s story arc into discernable steps with a probable outcome. The journey typically has twelve steps in three acts. (Thirteen Step Guide to the Hero’s Journey)
If my writing struggle follows this arc, what would that look like? Here’s how I imagine it.
Act I—The Departure
Step 1– The Ordinary World in which the hero is living their everyday life oblivious that they are called to something bigger. For me, I was retired and finally had the time to write I had dreamed about for years. I crafted two novels, several short stories and started a blog.
Step 2–The Call to Adventure: An incident transforms the hero’s life with a sudden jolt. As a member of several writing workshops, I read and edited memoirs for colleagues. The more I worked with these manuscripts, the more I knew I had to put down my other writing. I had to memorialize the lives of my two extraordinary children.
Step 3–The Refusal of the Call is where the hero doubts her abilities to accomplish the task. There seemed to be so many reasons this story couldn’t be told. It covered too many years. It was too complex. The mystery that shrouded it would be difficult to unveil.
Step 4–Meeting with the Mentor: There were multiple mentors in my life. Friends and writing colleagues, as well as family members, all urged me to write this book. My Wanderer’s Writing Workshop colleagues promised to read and give advice through every step of the process.
Step 5–Crossing the Threshold: Ready to head the call. The hero sets out on the journey. As best I could recall, I wrote a chronological record of what had transpired during Kristy and Johnny’s lives. Then I constructed an outline on which to base my writing.
Act II – Initiation
Step 6–Tests; allies; enemies: This is a long beginning of the adventure when the protagonist finds all their abilities stretched, discovers some new allies, and encounters expected enemies. I started the memoir in many places and gave it different emphases. Nothing seemed to work. New colleagues agreed to read the work. I took two memoir-writing classes, which both taught me techniques and bolstered my confidence. My memory and my self-confidence were constant enemies, begging me to give up this arduous task.
Step 7–Approach to the inmost cave: Here, the hero faces the genuine challenge. It’s the call to the ultimate battle. In December, 2021, I finished a complete draft, seventeen chapters! It felt like such an accomplishment. But it was only a “vomit draft,” that is everything I had in me about our story. With the new year, I faced turning those thousands of words into a well-paced, page-turner that someone would want to read.
Step 8–The Ordeal: This is the moment of truth where the hero dies, even if metaphorically, and must be reborn. For the last eight months I’ve “killed my darlings” as the jargon goes in the publishing world. With each part of the memoir that I chop from the final draft, a part of me goes with it. My hope is the final product will be a true rebirth.
Step 9–The Reward: The hero has achieved a major success. When I finally believe that I have edited my manuscript to where it can be offered for publication, I’ll have reached this step. But I’m not there yet.
Act III –Return
Step 10–The Road Back: The Hero returns home with the reward. Once I have what I am convinced is a publishable work, my journey will be to decide whether to self-publish or offer the memoir to a traditional publisher. Either of these will be a long, painstaking trek, but I’ll be buoyed up by having finished the manuscript.
Step 11–The Resurrection: The hero faces a major threat, often the threat of death itself. For me, this would be if they published my book, and no one buys it. I know absolutely that getting it out there will not be enough for me. I’ll need the affirmation that someone values it enough to pay for it.
Step 12–The return with the Elixir: After this, the hero is no longer the same. The challenge has been successful. Death is beaten. If my narrative fulfills its intent, others will understand what rich and meaningful lives Kristin and Johnny led. The meaning of their lives and mine will endure even when I die.
In her most recent email to fellow writers, my friend, and colleague, Erin Donely, challenged her readers with the question,” Is being a ‘best seller’ the best idea?”
“Every book reaches a critical juncture in its development,” Erin states, “when you must decide: Do I want this book to reach the masses, or does it serve a more specific audience? It’s hard to know at first.” (Erin Donley, erindonley@erindonley.com. July 29, 2022.)
Erin emphasizes that authoring a book about your life can be – terrifying, traumatic, and cathartic. But if you aren’t clear about what you are doing, the whole project will turn into a major burden.
You must be clear about two major aspects of your memoir. What is its purpose? Who is its ideal audience? The answers to those two questions will give a memoir its direction and its organizing principles. Without them, you have nowhere to begin because you don’t know where you are going.
have a higher purpose
To ensure that your book serves its highest purpose and reaches its most ideal audience, Erin suggests, you need to ask yourself why should this book be written. Who will benefit from reading these words? And most importantly, what do I need to get this work done?
Answering these questions correctly, she promises, will “set you free.”
So, I challenged myself to answer Erin’s questions, to fill in her blanks.
Starting with the question, “Who needs to see these words beside me?” I formulated the following.
“More than anyone, I want all the people who supported me as I cared for Kristin and Johnny, my two extraordinary children, to read it as soon as it’s available to them. Every one of them needs to know what their strength and caring meant to me and to my children, how they sustained me and kept me going when I thought I’d never make it, and how much I will always thank God for bringing them into my life.”
These helpers and supporters were family members, friends, neighbors, teachers, care workers, and other parents of persons with disabilities. Like angels, there always was “someone,” just the right “someone” for the moment. I know they won’t all find themselves directly referenced in the memoir, but I hope they pick up the vibes of gratitude that the book will carry.
all parents need to know
In speaking directly to those who upheld me throughout my children’s lives, I hope to speak indirectly to all parents. Raising a child, any child, from infancy to adulthood, is a challenging task and they don’t have to go it alone. We all need support. Hopefully, parents hear me say, “Open yourselves to help whenever it’s available.” I didn’t do that as often as I should have.
When I envision speaking directly to this audience, Erin feels confident that I’ll set my book free – “from having to do the heavy lifting that commercially viable books require.” I can draft our story without seeking expert advice about my children’s medical conditions and without comparing my book to others on the same topic.
the toughest question
That leaves me with Erin’s last and very central question, “What do I need to get it done?”
At this point, the whole story is there – all twenty-seven chapters of it! You’re right. You don’t want to read twenty-seven chapters and I don’t blame you. I am working hard to hone it down to ten succinct chapters, following the advice of one of my other mentors, writer, Ellen Blum Barish (http://www.ellenblumbarish.com/). She suggested last fall that I pick a number and stick with it. “Your instinct for an important number can be a true guide,” she assured me. She also said, “Find the stories that make Kristin and Johnny ‘Pop off the page.’” I’m trying to do that. Johnny adored everything Seuss and would have loved her advice.
Another respected mentor Marian Roach Smith (https://marionroach.com/)has helped me seek “the turn for home” like a good racer. I’m doing my best to keep pace. The memoir is not a never-ending story. It’s coming closer every day to being a finished project.
As important as what a memoir must be is what it cannot be. Memoir is not autobiography. By far most memoirists are not people whose lives compel them to write a full-blown autobiography. If you are the first Black woman to become Vice-President of the United States, readers will want to know about your childhood, your education, and even how you manage to get dinner on the table while being the Vice-President. Thus, you will need to write an autobiography. And you’ll call on professional writers to help you craft memorable work.
The rest of us who wish to share part of our stories with the wider community have a humbler purpose. Everyone has fields of expertise. That doesn’t necessarily mean an ability that takes years of school or practice, like playing the piano well or teaching grade although those certainly are important and interesting skills. An area of personal expertise can be as simple as developing a satisfying relationship with a rescue dog. Yet, these smaller-scale accomplishments offer opportunities to develop compelling narratives that will hold readers on the page from the first word to the last.
finding myself in your story
The reasons I would read your memoir differ fundamentally from my motivation for reading Kamala Harris’ autobiography. I’ll read her book to learn about Kamala. When I read your book, I’ll be hoping to learn something about myself.
That’s right! The kicker of writing a memoir is that it isn’t “about” the writer. It’s about his/her/their field of expertise that can have meaning for you in your life. If, as a memoirist, I stray into simply drafting my own story just to tell you about me, you aren’t going to read it. Even if you thought you’d like it and bought it, you wouldn’t finish it. Reading must nourish us in a way. When a memoir does what it is supposed to do, the reader learns something they can apply to their own life. What they learn may even be a universal truth they already knew, but the memoir heightens its value for them.
finding the universal
The claim I make here is one of the seven principles of memoir writing, developed by Marion Roach Smith. She calls it the “Need for the Universal.” https://marionroach.com/?s=need+for+universal
As I continue the challenge of writing my memoir, I must find a way to universalize my argument. Where in my story would others see themselves? Six drafts of my memoir imprinted themselves on my computer screen before I finally discovered the four-leaf clover, the universal factor in the story I wanted to tell.
the way I was
In the early years of mothering my children who struggled with progressive myoclonic epilepsy, a rare brain disorder, I became overwhelmed with the effort to find a remedy for their illness and to care for them completely on my own. Eventually, however, I realized I needed to step back from their full-time care and share that responsibility with others more experienced than myself.
what i became
The universal exists in the tension, what Roach Smith names “the gap” between the two. https://marionroach.com/?s=create+the+gap What stood between me and the best possible life for my children? It was the dread of a word freighted with misunderstanding, “institutionalization.” I needed to move from a place where no matter how tremendous overwhelmed I became; I was never going to be “one of those parents who put their children away” to realizing that good residential care for children and adults with developmental disabilities can be an exceptionally good thing.
a better understanding
The right place not only provides a happy, productive life for the residents but also involves their families in a wider community of support and engagement, which empowers advocacy and nourishes friendships. If a family is fortunate enough to find a genuinely good residential situation for their challenged family member both that child/adult and the whole family will lead fuller, richer, more satisfying lives.
As I write and construct this narrative, I must keep in mind that there is a full range of residential options for persons with developmental disabilities. We were lucky to find Misericordia. But there’s a larger principal at work in my argument. It is that a broad supportive community of some kind is a necessity of life for any parent but most especially for parents of children with special needs. It’s not easy to find that community but it does exist and it’s worth seeking out. More than anything I want my memoir to say to other parents:
don’t do this alone
You deserve to be happy. You can find joy in parenting your special child who brings unique blessings into your life. But it won’t happen if you’re exhausted by their care. Help is out there. If you don’t have time to look for it, ask for the help of your family.
Our children need our advocacy, and we can only bring that to the table if we nourish ourselves as well as them.
