I’m taking a break from blogging here until Monday so I can focus on family business — specifically tonight’s wake and tomorrow’s funeral for Nana Ruth. If you knew Ruth Robinson and haven’t yet seen the Facebook page we created for her, please head over and “like” it. Thanks.
It happens whenever someone dies. After the initial shock passes, you start thinking about when the wake and funeral will take place, including whether it will get in the way of your work, family, or entertainment plans. We feel selfish and petty when we get this way, but it’s human nature.
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Some of the youngsters in my life went through this as we prepared for the wake and funeral of Nana Ruth. There was the quest for perfect attendance at school that wasn’t realized because of the funeral. There was the grumbling over fun and games getting put on ice. We’re getting similar discontent as we prepare for the wake and funeral of Grammie Arline.
It drives us adults crazy, and we try to teach the kids that life’s unfair and we’re called to put our wants aside in times like these. But we grown-ups aren’t much better.
I don’t have to look far to find an example.
My great-grandmother died hours before my 25th birthday. Her daughter, my nana, died on Columbus Day weekend in 2003. Papa died the day before a major relaunch of the newspaper I was working for at the time. Sometimes, I grin as I think of how my grandparents were probably getting back at me for not visiting them often enough. They could be deliciously devious that way.
My brother died days into a diet and exercise program I was obsessed with at the time. In my 13-year-old mind, that program was vital to my future as one of the cool kids who got all the girls in junior high. As a 26 year old, I was again on the path to fitness when my best friend died. From there, the binge eating and escape into work was off the rails.
Inconvenient deaths, mucking up all my best-made plans.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gained a lot more perspective on these things. I’ve slowly learned that life can be disrupted without being derailed completely. In the old days, when my life lost control following death, it was usually my own doing.
Today, I’m better at temporarily putting things on hold, honoring the dead and then moving on.
The youngsters in my life will learn that lesson in time.
Hopefully, they won’t have to get their hearts broken too much along the way. But in the end, that’s in God’s hands.
Those who know me understand that I’m not bothered by humor that pokes fun at OCD. As long as there’s plenty of education available for people to manage the more insidious parts of the disorder, I’m fine with having fun with the quirks. My only requirement is that the jokes be clever.
Some time ago, I wrote about clever OCD gag gifts. These gifts, though, I never want to find in my Christmas stocking. Not because they’d hurt my feelings, but because they’re not even remotely funny. Everything I’m about to pick on is available on CafePress. I have nothing against them, really. I just wouldn’t buy or wish to receive them.
Let’s start with this ornament, which plays on the long-accepted fallacy that people with OCD love to clean:
The fact is that we don’t like cleaning any more than the rest of the population. We’re just driven to do it because our brains get stuck on things that look unsanitary or out of place.
If you see this hanging off of someone’s tree, chances are they need their head examined for some other kind of disorder. Or maybe they just own a cleaning company.
Next we have a variety of signage playing around with the OCD acronym. You can order these on T-shirts, mugs, mouse pads, and the like:
Call me dimwitted, but I never knew a love of fishing and canning qualified as a disorder.
Here we have some poorly done wordplay that tries to have fun with the more stereotypical OCD quirks like hand washing:
This particular design appears on a thong for sale in the online store. Finding this on underwear really should creep a person out.
I’ll end with one I actually included on the good list of gag gifts, but it just hasn’t stood the test of time for me. The problem, I suppose, is that this sort of thing has really been overdone:
It’s not that it bothers me. It just bores me.
If you want to buy a gift that makes light of a person’s disorder and think the recipient will enjoy it, go for it. Humor goes a long way in making a scary, frustrating thing seem smaller and more harmless.
Just try to know the difference between clever and stupid.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Erin’s grandmother, Ruth Robinson, since she passed away Friday morning. I have lots of memories, all cherished.
Whenever I think of family, there’s always a lot of dysfunction to go with the joy. It’s like that in every family, and the dysfunction can be good, the stuff that goes into the humorous aspects of family lore. But when I think of Nana Ruth, I always see that smile. That smile could put the most uptight, cantankerous people at ease and fill them with warmth.
I know this because when I first started dating Erin 19 years ago, I was an uptight kid with a chip on his shoulder. Being the negative type, I always thought of my own family gatherings as battles to be survived. It didn’t occur to me at that point that you could or should enjoy time with family. I always chose to run. I don’t blame my family for that. It’s just how I was back then.
My perception started to change when I met Erin’s family. I didn’t feel like I had to be on my best behavior or watch what I said. I felt comfortable in my own skin. Nana Ruth really personified that environment. Hanging out with her was like soaking up the warmth of a roaring fireplace. She and Erin would talk for hours whenever we visited. Erin inherited a lot from her Nana: a love of knitting, endless worrying about other people, that smile.
Nana was big into family history. She’d spend hours telling us about the Sawyers and the extended Robinsons. At Robinson family gatherings we’d laugh and laugh. All the girls of the family had traits Nana passed down to them. There’s my mother-in-law Sharon’s serene nature, Cousin Martha’s sense of humor and everyone’s faith in God.
Of course, she rubbed off on the Robinson boys, too. I think of Uncle David and Cousin Andy — two guys who are always generous with their time and talents. Uncle David once got rid of a dent and paint blemish on my car for free. Andy designed the art you see atop this blog, and didn’t seem to care if I ever paid him. I did — two years after he did the first design.
It all goes back to Nana Ruth. Her kindness rubbed off on everyone, including our kids.
Sean and Duncan are still young, but Sean remembers Nana Ruth getting down on the ground to play with him and his trains. She did so for a whole week once, keeping Sean occupied so Erin could continue working while I recovered from a back injury. She played with Sean on the living floor for hours as I lay on the couch a few feet away, passed out on pain meds.
We have to say goodbye to her this week, but all that warmth, kindness, laughter and beauty will be with us forever. I’d like to think she’s helped make me a better person, though that’s for others to judge.
At the very least, her influence — just like that of the grandaughter I married — makes me want to be a better man. I’ll keep trying, and I know she’ll be watching.
Things I’m thankful for this Thanksgiving and every day:
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Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
After all my blogging this past election season about how friends and family shouldn’t become enemies over politics and how we all need to knock off the conspiracy theories and name-calling, I’m reviewing my Facebook friends list in search of damage. Here’s my final analysis.
It turns out one person unfriended me. I considered her a solid Facebook friend. We went to high school together and shared many musical tastes. We both post a lot about our families and love and care for our children. But last week she cut me loose without explanation. I think I know why.
She has always been the type to complain a lot on Facebook, such as fights with her husband and hatred of her job. She held nothing back. That’s her right. It is her Facebook account, after all. The day after the election, she melted down, suggesting that things would never be OK again and that we were all doomed. I mentioned her comment in my day-after-the-election post, though I didn’t mention her by name. My goal was to cheer up her and others crushed by Romney’s defeat by offering some “life goes on” perspective. But she apparently wasn’t up for it.
No hard feelings. I don’t regret what I did, and I did keep her comment anonymous.
Meanwhile, I unfriended four people, including a husband and wife, last week. I didn’t do so because these people were liberal or conservative. I did it because I felt they were going over the top and painting everyone who disagreed with them as tyrants.
One former and very liberal friend finally gave me more than I could take when he posted a meme trivializing the power of prayer compared to science. He had been posting stuff like that all along and pinning all the world’s folly on Republicans. Believing as I do that both parties are equally to blame for our current economic and political troubles and in the power of prayer, I decided I didn’t need to see his bullshit anymore.
I hated unfriending the husband and wife. I particularly liked the husband, given our common musical tastes and the paths we both crossed back in the day, even if we didn’t know each other at the time. But they were taking their hatred of President Obama to levels I finally found too toxic for my blood.
If they had simply posted stuff about how Romney was the better choice for America, I’d have been fine with it. But everything became a conspiracy to them. Obama went from being the least capable steward of the economy to someone like Hitler, a guy who happily kills women and children and then covers it up. Their posts intensified after the election, and that’s when I respectfully cut ties.
All in all, I’d say the damage wasn’t too terrible. That’s a small amount of unfriending considering I have 2,334 friends, family and business associates in my network.
I choose to believe most of us got through all the vitriol in one piece. Hopefully, we can enjoy each other’s company a bit more now.
At least until the next election.
A very quick follow-up to yesterday’s post about me being of the Religious Left. My good friend Martin Fisher left a comment I want to elevate to the top of the heap because he says exactly what I meant, in a different but dead-on manner.
From Martin:
You didn’t put it this way…but I suspect you’d agree….that many on the “Christian Right” have become latter day Pharisees. They seem more interested in the process and procedure of religion and calling out those who “don’t obey” that they miss the entire point of what being a follower of Jesus is about…
Christ sacrificed Himself on a cross to save the world. That world includes people you may not like, people you disagree with, people who do things you think are icky. But He died for them just as much as He died for you. You don’t get to choose…that choice was made 2000 years ago.
So, I think, the question is: What do you do now? Do you take this gift and try to see who is allowed to have some or not? Or do you let the light of Christ seep in and through you and help show others the way?
When we go to Mass we hear a lot about the Pharisees in the Bible readings. They are portrayed exactly as Martin portrays today’s Religious Right.
Thanks, old friend.
I’ve been on a spiritual high for the last several years. I became a Catholic in 2006 and since then have tried to live my faith to the fullest. I’ve been on three Catholic retreats, one as a team leader, and have spoken up about my beliefs regularly in this blog.
I’ve worked hard to become a more peaceful person instead of the Bill who would flip people off on the highway and throw rocks through windows when he was young and stupid. I’ve allowed God into my life as part of my battle over personal demons like addiction and bitterness toward some individuals. I’m still a long, long way from perfect. But I’m better than I used to be, and that counts for something.
But it’s been getting harder.
A lot of people who claim to be Christians do the very thing Jesus taught us not to do: Judge other people, in stark black and white. Sinners are complex beings, but the so-called Religious Right keeps telling us it’s pretty clear: If someone does everything to live a good, Christian life — feeding the poor, frowning upon war and violence in general and being kind to neighbors and strangers alike — they may still go to Hell.
Why? Because that person votes for Democrats.
Democrats tend to consider themselves pro-choice or, as the Religious Right calls it, pro-abortion. To be pro-choice is to embrace the murder of unborn babies. The Religious Right has taken over the Republican Party, and God-loving candidates go on about protecting the sanctity of life, meaning the unborn, while embracing the death penalty, something the Catholic Church itself opposes.
I have a lot of dear brothers and sisters in my home church who would give you the proverbial shirts off their backs and drop everything to help a neighbor in need. We don’t always agree on politics, but we agree on the things that count. There are a few in my church who are also judgmental and arrogant as all hell, but they tend to be a minority.
Beyond my home church, though, you see a religion taken over by powerful people whose only interest is in getting obedience from the masses. They may do some good things, raising money for charity for example, but then they do the worst of the worst: They point to certain segments of society and telling their followers that it’s OK to look down on them as some subhuman blob of sin incarnate.
Gays.
Immigrants.
Women.
The poor.
Liberals.
In short, the leaders of the Religious Right tell us anyone who isn’t just like them are bad.
There’s this notion that to be a “true” Christian, you have to be a Republican and frown upon government programs. The welfare of the poorest among us must be taken care of by charitable organizations alone. To allow for government assistance is to support government control of every facet of our public and personal lives. In other words, being a Democrat means you support a socialist regime that allows intrinsic evils like abortion. You also don’t support freedom of religion.
What a bunch of rubbish.
I know a lot of conservatives and liberals, and they tend to feel the way I do on the following:
I’m tired of right-wing extremists controlling my religion. I know Jesus. He’s with me through every success and failure, never quitting me. He looks nothing like the finger pointing, arrogant people I see everywhere now.
I’m not leaving the Catholic faith over it or rejecting the sacraments. I love and need those. But I can make it known that I’m not going to follow the intolerant herd. So, from here on out, I’m considering myself a member of the Religious Left.
God bless you.
A lot of people are sad this morning because Hostess, maker of Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread, is going out of business after striking workers failed to heed a Thursday deadline to return to work. That’s the company’s official line, anyway.
Mood music:
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Me? I feel badly that 18,500 workers are getting laid off, though I suspect some other company will swoop in and buy Hostess for a song. The world needs its cream filling, after all.
But part of me would be glad to see the company go for a simple reason: As a compulsive binge eater who once ballooned up to 280-plus pounds because of the addiction, Hostess cakes were essentially my crack cocaine. I’d go into gas stations and buy up most of their Twinkies and both the chocolate and yellow cupcakes.
By going out of business, Hostess gives me one less thing to worry about going forward. No Hostess, no binge food.
Of course, it’s not that simple.
I’d simply binge on something else if it came to that. And McDonald’s was always number 1 in my binge book anyway.
Still, I think I can now relate to the feeling heroin and coke addicts got every time a drug lab got blown up during the ill-fated war on drugs. I can picture some junkies worrying about their supply drying up and going on a stockpiling craze.
That’s surely going to be the case with Hostess addicts. Expect a run on all their products at your local grocery store.
The good news is that with all the preservatives in those things, the supply you manage to hoard will never go bad.
WebMD has a fantastic thing called the Symptom Checker. Have a headache and numbness in the toes? Just punch it into the symptom checker and get a diagnosis.
Mood music:
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In the hands of an OCD patient, this thing can provide hours of obsessive-compulsive fun, as you pinpoint every ache and pain in your body and have the Symptom Checker tell you what’s the matter.
The first thing you do is point to parts of a human body displayed in the first column on the page. If the problem area is the abdomen, click there and a list of possible symptoms pop up. Click the different symptoms (bloating, lumps, etc.) to collect them in the second column. The third column gives you a list of possible ailments. Click bloody vomit or vomit that resembles coffee grounds, and a red box pops up telling you to get “emergency medical attention.” Given all the coffee I consume, it’s hard to imagine my vomit not looking like coffee grounds.
Occasionally you’ll get a diagnosis for something you’ve probably never heard of, like Mallory-Weiss Syndrome. This affliction is some pretty serious shit. WebMD describes it this way:
Mallory-Weiss syndrome occurs in the mucous membrane where the esophagus and stomach connect. Vomiting or coughing strongly or for a long period of time can cause the membrane to tear and possibly bleed. Seizures may also cause tearing. People in their 40s or 50s are most likely to have Mallory-Weiss tears, but children can have them, too. Pregnant women are also at risk due to vomiting in the first trimester. Mallory-Weiss tears often heal on their own in a few days. In rare cases, surgery is required. Blood loss is a concern, so get medical care right away.
I get a lot of headaches, so I played around with the Symptom Checker for a while. I already know my trouble stems from sinuses that refuse to drain properly, but WebMD offers a much wider list of possible ailments: brain tumor, brain bleed, and so on. Go back a decade, when I would feel a pain and instantly assume the worst, and this potential diagnosis would have catapulted me straight to the nearest emergency room.
It turns out that pulling whiskers from my beard is a sign of bone infection. I always thought I did it as a distraction when the kids ignore my commands to pick up the room or shut the TV.
Bottom line: This can be a useful tool, but if you’re an OCD case it can be the catalyst for endless worry and panic. Like any medical symptom tool to be found online, it lists everything from the slightest to most serious conditions. I can poke fun now, but back when my fear and anxiety were out of control I’d have played with this thing for hours, breaking into a cold sweat and assuming the worst.
If you’re in that situation now, my advice is to walk away. A tool like this is dangerous in the hands of an unstable mind. If you’re in a calmer state of mind, it’s nothing more than a time-sucking distraction.
It’s a lot like Facebook, actually.
