Memories of Mom

We've just passed Mother's Day, my first without my mother. She passed last July with me at her side. She was 93, blind, and in constant pain from a broken arm that could not be immobilized. That made it easier to let her go, but it hasn't taken the sting out of her loss.

As we drew near the annual holiday, I found I missed her more each day. Many times I found myself wishing I could just pick up the phone as I once did. Even though I can't, I do sometimes still talk to her when no one else is watching. Oh, how I wish I could hear her replies!

Of course, with the missing come the memories. An early one comes from when I was about four. Some of the kids in the neighborhood were into the books featuring Doctor Dan and Nurse Nancy. Looking at them, I told Mom I might like to be a nurse. Teasing me, she said I was too squeamish for that. I took umbrage, insisting I'd grow out of that, and she said, "Then why not be a doctor?" In the mid-50s, this was not a popular position, but Mom saw no reason why her daughters couldn't do anything her sons could. That attitude stuck with me.

Around that same time, our family was in a car accident. On a narrow, graveled mountain road, Dad skidded on gravel, went up onto the side of the mountain to avoid plunging down the other side, and rolled the car as a result. When the dust settled, we crawled out through the windows to take stock. Dad was okay. My little sister had some bruises, but she was fine. So was I and Mom said she was. Since it seemed no one was injured, we all hiked to where we could summon help. Only after we were home did Mom mention the stiffness in her neck. It turned out two vertebrae were fractured. She lived with neck pain the rest of her life, dealt with it, and seldom said much about it.

Mom made most of my clothes, even when I reached the age for formal dances. My "homemade" prom dresses were every bit as stunning as my friends' off-the-rack examples or even moreso, since Mom was excellent at the sewing machine. Both my sister and I benefited, though Mom stopped short of tailoring my brothers' suits. I'm certain she could have.

It seemed Mom could do everything well. She and Dad laid their own circular driveway, studded with pebbles gathered at the beach. She made rag rugs and eclairs and the best apple butter you can imagine. She painted walls and pictures, canned mountains of fruits and vegetables, and did most of it while teaching full-time. Hundreds of adults can read today because they were in Mrs. Hubbard's first grade classes.

Like most mother-daughter relationships, ours was complicated. I was the oldest child and was therefore expected to be perfect, an expectation I found impossible and confining. Mom and I saw the world in very different ways, a matter which bothered her endlessly.

Nevertheless, as this Mother's Day came and went, I missed her. Terribly. And wished I could share a few minutes with her once again. If you still have your mother, why not give her a call. Today, while you still can.

What I Want for Mother’s Day

By Karen McCullough

Mother’s Day is in a couple of days, and I’ll actually be getting exactly what I want from my kids and grandkids to celebrate the day.

They already know there are few things I need and not many that I want. I’m in the fortunate position of being able to buy the things I most want and have learned that nearly all possessions bring only a brief jolt of joy, if even that much, so I desire very few.

My family knows that I really don’t want anything that will sit on a shelf and need to be dusted or washed. I have plenty of those already and I’m trying to get rid of many of them. There are exceptions. Pictures, particularly of them and their children, are always welcome. Since I go through coffee mugs all too quickly, I’m usually happy to get a new one, especially if it relates to a special time or place.

I love getting cards, especially those that are personalized or show that some thought and effort went into them. And flowers always bring me joy.

But what I want most from my children and grandchildren is time with them. Time spent playing games, talking, walking, shopping, eating ice cream, visiting museums, even reading stories with them.

This coming Sunday I’ll be heading to the beach for a week with my husband, sister-in-law, two daughters, and my younger daughter’s husband and four children. The children are all boys – ages 7, 5 (he turned six yesterday but we’ll be celebrating his birthday at the beach), 4, and 2.

If all goes as usual there will be plenty of fun, laughter, talk, games, good food, drink, sun, and surf. We’ll spend time reading and playing in the sand and ocean water. We’ll talk endlessly, scatter for walks and shopping trips, and then share experiences later on.

I can’t think of anything I could want more than that for Mother’s Day.

The Merry Month of May

 There are so many memorable and commemorated days this month, how do we keep track of the whys and wherefores of them all. Here are a few of the ancient superstitions surrounding May dating back to earliest Celtic times.

May was considered the least advantageous for weddings as the offspring of a May bride (and groom) were doomed to have bad luck. Also, farm animals born during this month were believed to be obstinate and a pack of bother. Shetlanders never marry in May, preferring the winter months – after the fishing season had ended.

May begins the fishing season in the northern reaches of Scotland and the Isle of Man. People who engage in dangerous jobs often hold superstitions that seem to have protective qualities. Manx  and Scots fisherman never used English or Scottish words at sea, sticking to Norn, a descendant of Old Norse.

When I was a child, every school held a May Day festival for which we practiced all through the early spring to dance around the Maypole, a Druidic tradition.

In Wales, a cold May was believed to mean a full barn and an empty graveyard.

More recently, we have designated May for the celebration of motherhood which grew from the Christian church event of Mothering Sunday, when the small local chapel congregations gathered at the mother church – the parish center – usually celebrated in March in British countries.

This past weekend we commemorated Armed Forces Day:

“President Harry S. Truman led the effort to establish a single holiday for citizens to come together and thank our military members for their patriotic service in support of our country.

“On August 31, 1949, Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson announced the creation of an Armed Forces Day to replace separate Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force Days.

The single day celebration stemmed from the unification of the Armed Forces under the Department of Defense.”

http://afd.defense.gov/ 

Memorial Day is commemorated the last weekend of May, but the actually date is the 31st.

“Today is a special day. It is a day of honor and reverence; it is a solemn day. Today we must recognize an unfortunate fact of life: our beloved country was formed and is protected by the blood of warriors. …”

http://www.usmemorialday.org/

Allow me to take this opportunity to express my deepest respect and gratitude to every man and woman who has served in the Armed Forces in the United States and my heartfelt condolences to those who are grieving the loss of their loved ones.

Your sacrifice is never forgotten.

The Difficulty of Thinking Short

by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson

One of the first things I hear when people learn that I’m a novelist is “Where do you get your ideas?” Well, duh! The world is full of ideas. I’ve said that many times. Also that a book takes many ideas, but the good thing is that ideas feed off each other. There’s another thing I hear a lot – “How do you write so many words?” That one doesn’t even deserve an answer. Also, “How do you know how many words you’ll need?” Easy answer : As many as it takes to tell the story. (Unless you’re writing for a publisher with strict word-count requirements; I don’t, so that doesn’t enter into my equation.) One of the best analogies of short story vs novel is a short story is drawing a tiny miniature; a novel is painting a mural on the side of a building.

Back to the subject of this blog. I really believe the world is brimming with ideas for books. Where I have trouble – and this is a difficult admission for me to make – is with the short stuff. I had sold two novels to major publishers before I sold a short story. (I am exempting short, factual, business pieces done for my various jobs – they are another animal entirely!) I still am uncomfortable with the short story format, and can generally write half a novel in the same time it takes to get a short story (1) short enough and (2) in a decent enough shape to submit. Some of us just can’t do small! One time a nice lady who was letting me guest blog said in an effort to be reassuring, “Don’t worry – all you’ll need is 350 words or so.” I told her that there were some days I couldn’t say ‘good morning’ in just 350 words! My trip diary from our time in Egypt this March is creeping towards 30,000 words.

A memory – years ago, when I was editor in chief of a multi-magazine publishing house, we were running a special feature for Mother’s Day. Local celebrities were invited to write 250 words or so about their mothers. The idea took hold so that everyone answered, including a few who hadn’t been asked but had heard about it and wanted their mothers included. We decided to use them all (the ones that were marginally literate, that is) but that sent our page count up. In magazines you have to go up four pages at a time, and we had enough to fill three. The ad manager said she’d send the salesmen out again to see if she could drum up some sales. I said I’d write something about my mother – who, incidentally, threatened me with disinheritance if I wrote a word about her. I said we had at least a quarter page to fill, which is a fairly large amount. (All our magazines were tabloid-sized.) She suggested I write about my great-grandmother who came with her husband to the US as a bond servant, and after their time was served were early pioneers of Texas. She lost her husband not long after they came to Texas and was left with a farm and six children under 10. Mother gave me the facts and dates, but said she didn’t know how I would expand that to fill a quarter page.

Well, I started to write and before you know it, I had a full page of copy. One entire page! (Told you I couldn’t write short!) I called the publisher and the ad manager and told them to call off the salesmen. The publisher wasn’t quite sure about this until she read the piece, then she called the layout artist and had this story put on page 3 – the prime spot in the magazines. That story won an award, and that issue was the only one in the magazine’s history that I knew about which sold out entirely. So much for short…

The worst part of short for me, however, is blogging, especially when you blog regularly. My great fear is boring people. I honestly don’t know how people who have their own blogs do it. Unless you’re publicizing a new release, it’s hard to come up with things to say on a regular basis. If you do have a new book out, it’s easy – just talk about it, about how you wrote it, about how it ties in with your other books, about how you came up with the characters, and so on and so on and so on. The only thing is, you can only do that so long before people get bored with a continuing commercial and might start skipping your blog, so why bother having one? Last year, when I was releasing a spate of backlist books (one every two weeks from June 1 to October 31) I was in hog heaven – readymade copy fodder, all different books with different backstories, just waiting for me. Now, though…

I can always do a fluff piece like this one, but don’t know how interesting it is to others. I don’t like to blog about my personal life outside the writing sphere. I probably could, but would be very hesitant about doing a craft or a how-to piece – after all, I’m neither rich nor famous in the writing field. Heck, I’m not even middlin’ or infamous! My books don’t grace the bestseller lists. My royalties have a pathetic lack of multiple zeroes in the final amount. How could I be so arrogant as to try to teach others?

So I will just keep writing novels, putting one word after another, and searching desperately for blog fodder that won’t drive people away. I do warn you, though – whatever they’re about, they won’t be short!