Lessons Learned and Reminders in 2014

What 30-year-old friendship looks like (with moonshine!)

The formative years are, well, formative: I had the good fortune to reconnect with my college friends, in person, for a girls’ weekend this year and the concentrated togetherness was a pure gift. What sums it up is how deep those bonds of friendship remain after all of these years. The same is true for my special group of high school friends. And as I watch my children in their formative years, I see how that bond is minted. Everything is so raw and exposed in our teens and twenties. Emotions are deeper and experiences, all of which are new, seem to be etched with a sharper point.  Even the music we listened to stays with us 30 years later; lyrics to songs from those years are crystal clear whereas my internet passwords are forgotten in weeks. The deep friendships we made then come back in a rush when we gather in a room or restaurant and find ourselves figuratively sprawled out in the dorm triple, laughing and remembering. But real life is all around us and, even though my friends and I live long distances apart, their joys are my joys and their losses are my own. With them, the highs are higher and the lows are more manageable.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree: This reminder has been making itself known to me for many years. But this year was particularly convincing as adults in positions to evaluate my boys (i.e., school counselors) offered their opinions on my boys’ personalities. Not only do they get my cowlicks, fair skin, perfectionism (intermittently dispersed), demanding self-criticism (also not equally distributed), clicking jaw (1 out of 3), and under-weight status (with a vengeance), but now I’ve sat and listened to evaluations that sound like my own self-analysis. Hopefully all of the good stuff will outweigh the stuff I wish I could have kept out of the gene pool!

You can teach an old dog new tricks: I found myself presented with a challenge at work that was squarely outside of my comfort zone – to create animated videos for a marketing campaign to generate leads. I tried to pass the hot potato back to our graphic designer, but she was swamped. Under the eyes of a new boss, I realized it was sink or swim. So I dove in and what began as 3 little videos turned into 6 after my reputation spread. Now it is up to 7 and growing. New software learned and new right hemisphere brain functionality discovered and my little videos supported the campaign and have ended up on the new corporate website unveiled this week. As an observer, I also “watched” from afar as my aunt in DC (who is in no way an “old dog”, but she made a brave change in her life) made the huge move from her house of 40 years to a condo that is more conducive to her and my uncle’s lifestyle. Those passageways through dark hallways imprinted in memory after so many early mornings and late night checks on the kids, that familiar route to the grocery store and Metro stop, that same parking spot, the comforting sounds of each hinge squeak and floorboard creak, the urban identity embraced and emboldened in a changing world, the smells and living embedded in memory, all lovingly handed off to a new young family with the hope that it will be for them the comfort zone, the family hub, and shelter in storms that it was for my extended family.

Laughter is the best medicine: Sometimes it is just a table cloth covering a cracked and damaged table. Other times the laughter actually caulks and mends the cracks. Sometimes the covering is good enough, for the moment. Laughter is a godsend in the teen-raising world, helping to not take myself or the minor troubles that arise too seriously. Recognizing the minor from the major troubles is another whole story. If laughter were as quick as suppressed grief, I’d be in much better shape to counter the stubbornly strong and unpredictable hold that grief has on me, pulling the tablecloth off way too often for my liking. But I work toward the constant goal of living in the moment and face life with a smile. At the end of the day, laughter is a survival skill. And I was groomed all my life to love to laugh. So if it is all that is left. Then maybe laughter is enough.

Seeking Significance

My Great Aunt Margaret McCarthy was a fount of what we now know to be timeless wisdom. So I'm not surprised to learn that when her son, Tim, broke the news to her that he was about to become a very wealthy man, Aunt Margaret's response was, "Oh honey, I'm so sorry." She was concerned about the burden that wealth would become to Tim, having "seen better people than [Tim] changed by money."

Tim has written a very thoughtful and thought-provoking book titled Empty Abundance in which he details his winding path to wealth and the empty rewards and lack of satisfaction that came with that wealth. Most importantly, his writing describes the solution he discovered to the problem of illusive happiness - the happiness our culture conditions us to expect as a reward for wealth. The solution is what Tim calls 'mindful giving' and while his application of that solution is unique to Tim, the principles and guidelines he shares are a great foundation to anyone seeking to find meaning in their lives.

While I don't speak from a position of wealth, I do speak from a position of a decent understanding of the human spirit. And I can say without hesitation that at any time in my life when I was lonely, discouraged, grieving, helpless, or unhappy, my reliable cure was to give whatever time or talents I could offer. There is tremendous power in giving but we sometimes forget that we have much to give. For all of those low times in life, the feeling of significance craves attention. And there is nothing like giving to bolster that feeling. From the richest to the poorest, everyone seeks significance. How great that the answer lies in helping others.

I was taught from a very early age that wealth doesn't always mean money. From the inevitable question of a child - "Mommy, are we rich?" - to the answer I grew up with - "We are rich in the very best of ways" - there is always room to give. And if there is no more room, then receive, and give when you are back on your feet.

Tim's personal solution involved seeding and now continuing to support and grow his The Business of Good Foundation which serves those who serve the poor. His great posts on the Foundation's blog give a sample of his writing, humor, mission, and what makes him tick, including excerpts from his book. I encourage anyone who is curious about how to find meaning through mindful giving to take a look at his blog and consider ordering his book. 

I wish Tim and everyone an abundance of happiness and good reading. 

The Pulling Away

I have come to learn that there are many different kinds of "pulling away."

As I get closer to the day when my oldest son heads off to college, it makes sense that goodbyes are on my mind. But it isn't the physical pulling away from the curb and heading off to college that I'm writing about. It is the psychological change that happens as my boys hit their teens and pull away in the sense of connectivity. I'm now knee-deep in the third pulling away and it is the hardest of the three, and I'm not sure why.

There has been the here's-your-hat-what's-your-hurry pulling away, when this energetic teen couldn't spend a minute of down-time with us without going out of his mind (and driving us all there with him). It hurt to have my company be considered so undesirable! But it wasn't unexpected. And I admit to encouraging the space, at times.

There has also been the pulling away that has felt like prying his hands, one finger at a time, from the handle of home. Where constant prodding, brainstorming, and offers of way-paving were met with deep-seated resistance and flat-out rejection. I suppose that only vaguely resembles pulling away. It is more pushing than pulling, but it is still a kind of reluctant, necessary, underlying pulling away.

This last one, is so subtle. There is no deliberate planning to ensure maximum time with friends. There is no obvious withdrawal. There is no need on my end for persuasion toward going out or inviting friends over. It is found in small steps away such as a new disinterest in usual conversation topics. It is found in the polite declines of offers to do the things we liked to do together. But I can usually still bring him back to pre-teen mode: He will even pose for a picture holding a doorknob if I ask it just right.

It is harder because he is the youngest. I know. And because I didn't really have the perspective or experience to see it in real-time with the others. The two older ones still drive a lot of activity around the house, but I can see the direction in which their pulling away is taking them. At the same time, I cherish the new mother-son relationships developing. I'm thankful for the little stuff. Liam spent most of the drive from Boston to Philadelphia patiently trying very hard to explain quantum physics to me. I will always support his passions, keeping up as best I can. I should get an A for effort as a captive student. Garrett makes sure to warn me when to look away from gory movie scenes (we don't watch many romantic comedies in my house). If this is budding compassion, I'm all for it. He has figured out pretty much on his own that Mass is hard for me. That gives me hope.

And in this season of thanksgiving, I'm thankful to have them all under our roof. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I'll be sure to coerce them into a family game of Scrabble, for some forced connectivity. They moan at the beginning, but then we settle in for some good old fashioned fun. At the core of it all, I just try to listen. Sometimes it is all I can do. Other times it is all I need to do.

So they pull away. But if I'm blessed, we won't ever lose our connectivity completely. They will have successes and failures. Loves and losses. And they may seem physically or emotionally far away. But I'm confident that the pulling away won't take them to a place we can't both share. I may be wrong. But I hope I'm right.

A New Direction

This blog started out as a business idea, one that I hoped would help me build my social media portfolio and become my own independent business. My primary goal was to start and maintain a business I could manage from my home so that I could achieve the perfect home/work balance I sought. Unfortunately, my financial portfolio and backers didn't have the patience to wait for me to grow Red Cupboard Solutions into a bona fide business. And when I received a great offer to market for a software company part-time, I couldn't refuse. So the blog posts became less frequent.

Then I published my book and dedicated space on my blog for promoting Preacher Kid. Always, the posts are interspersed with completely unrelated topics on my thoughts or beliefs, as I navigate through life.

So I thank those of you who have subscribed and followed me on this journey. I am not retiring the blog but I am going to turn it very definitely in the direction of personal experience and opinion and life lessons. I'm sure I will still find myself blogging now and then about the challenges and successes of small businesses, because it is a topic dear to my heart. And I'm positive that my book will slip in here now and then as I move into my next writing project: an eBook for the 10- to 15-year-old girls in my life about a fictitious young girl growing up in early 20th Century Ohio, based on Esther Miller's story.

To my subscribers, I value your loyalty but respect that you may have come upon my blog for reasons other than hearing my personal views. And if you choose to unsubscribe, that is perfectly understandable! If you choose to stay, thank you! Staying may mean you will hear, with irregularity, about raising three teen males (who are quite sure they don't need any more raising), how I miss the Midwest, and the silly questions in my life such as should I replace my 100-year-old main staircase that has gotten progressively creakier. Oh, wait. Those are just my knees. Ah yes, that fun topic of aging and all of the retrospection, realization, and grounding it brings.

So if someone were to stumble newly upon my blog and peruse the archives, they would see a journey from small business social media maven (2012), then author promotion (2013 and a little in 2014), turning to life in general - which has been going on all along, in and around the marketing and promotion. Now, maybe as I see my years of direct parenting dwindling in front of me, it is what I should have been writing about all along. It is the best job I've ever had.

So the journey continues. And for those who have been following my more personal posts...My family traveled to the Grand Canyon this summer (in addition to 1,600 other miles of adventure)! Another check off my bucket list!

Making the Marquee

As a child and teenager, I spent countless hours at the Rocky River Public Library and my children became intimately familiar with it on our many visits back to see my parents. Growing up, if we ever couldn't find Dad, we knew to look at the library. Though long gone, I can tell you exactly where the enormous card catalog used to sit. And my mom enjoyed immensely her terms on their Board of Trustees. So it was very special for me to speak there last week. I even made their marquee!

Thank you to all of the kind folks who came to listen, especially my fantastic family, a wonderful high school friend who has kept in touch and helped me out all these years, the mayor and her husband, one of my mom's friends, and the friend who drove by the marquee at 6:50pm, looked it up online because she is interested in family genealogy, and came in to listen when she recognized my name!

It was a very special event for me, made more so by my nephew who went home and began a genealogy search of his own (in the lull before driving to UC Berkley for grad school). See?! Everyone can find a little time to find their family story.

Thanks for joining me on my journey.

Write Women Back Into History

It is not every day that someone says to me, "It never would have happened without you." Maybe the three days when my boys where born fall into that category, but little else. That is one of the reasons why I was so touched when my neighbor stopped by to hand-deliver a letter that included those words. Rose and I live less than 40 yards from each other, but I hadn't met her until a few days before I gave my genealogy talk at our local library. She had been frustrated by the experience of having secured an agent to help her find a publisher for the book she had written, but seeing nothing come of the agent's commitment. She ditched the agent and was tentatively wading into the pool of self-publishing when someone at our library steered her toward me.

Rose has written a biography about Katherine Gibbs, the (1911) founder of the secretarial schools that bear her name and which became the best in the world. I am confident Rose's book, Katherine Gibbs: Beyond the White Gloves, will have broad appeal among alumnae, educators, women's history experts, New Englanders, and many others. It is wonderful that the bureaucratic world of commercial publishing did not prevent Rose's book from being published. I am very proud and honored that my guidance and encouragement played a small role in the publishing of her book.

As I look forward to reading Rose's book, I read about Rose's subject and see why Katherine Gibbs was recently honored by The National Women's History Project as a woman of character, courage, and commitment. I see my grandma's adaptability in Katherine Gibbs' story. I also see in the Gibbs story my great-grandmother, Maggie Kelley Saunders, who succeeded for many years in business after, as a young mother of two toddlers, losing her firefighting husband in a winter blaze -- advancing on no more than a high school education, her natural skills, and her determination to succeed.

Our history is full of women who have adapted to difficult circumstances. The National Women's History Project encourages us all to write women back into history. This is what Rose Doherty and I have done - Rose with a famous subject and I with a family subject. Writing my grandma's story was a very personal project for me, but it took on a broader perspective as I dove into her story, better appreciated what she overcame, and recognized how understanding the lives of our ancestors gives our own lives deeper meaning and value.

When I delivered my presentation at our local library, I focused primarily on genealogy, with just a small primer on self-publishing. My goal was to come out of that talk having inspired at least one person to begin or restart their genealogical journey. I'm pretty sure that happened, based upon the conversations I had after the talk. So to have also helped someone overcome the publishing hurdle is a wonderful bonus.

Do you know someone who should be written back into history? Man or woman, it is well worth the effort.

If you are on the west side of Cleveland this July 23rd, please consider stopping by the Rocky River Public Library for my 7:00pm presentation: "Are You Ready to Find Your Family Story?" If you know someone in the area who likes genealogy or is interested in self-publishing, please spread the word. It is a bit of a homecoming for me and I promise to give it everything I've got!

Always Adapting

We all have to adapt to survive. In fact, even though we don't like to admit it, we are in a constant state of adaptation. We like to believe that we are in control of our lives, as well the lives of the dependents in our care. And we can usually perpetuate the mirage of control, until one of life's larger forces rears its head - such as illness, accident, or death.

My grandma, Esther, mastered the art of adaptation, but I don't believe she purposefully schooled herself in adaptation. I think her ability to adapt came out of a deeper drive, lodged down in her soul, that placed survival above all else. Adaptation became a by-product of survival for her, as it does for many of us. Esther adapted to her nomadic life as a Preacher Kid, the chasm created in her family by her marriage to a Catholic, the sudden death of her 11 year-old son, the taking of her home by the state, and the deaths of her three spouses. Her story of adaptation in the face of adversity is an inspiration to people facing challenges of their own.

Whether it is a chronic illness, handicap or death of a child, depression or mental illness, relentless addiction, the premature death of a spouse or parent, a dooming medical diagnosis, a tragic accident, or a dramatic shift in life's course, we all have experienced tragedies or watched others navigate their own. But we adapt. We soldier through. We give support. We accept help. And what was once unthinkable or nightmarish, becomes the new normal. If it weren't for role models of resilience, we would be lost.

On this anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing, I think about the Richard family who lost their little boy, Martin, in the blast. As Denise Richard surveys her surroundings through her one eye that she did not lose to the bomb fragments, she may see her husband's permanent scars and compensate for his hearing loss. She would see her daughter with her prosthetic leg and her surviving son with his lost innocence who saw more horror and loss in an hour than most Americans see in a lifetime. But she also would see the living room full of friends and supporters who sit down with her family to discuss and decide the best course on which to move forward to honor Martin's life. The Richards have chosen the shadows in which to learn to acclimate to their new normal. But today forces them into the limelight. And their presence and resilience is nothing less than heroic. I hope these days and weeks under the microscope are not too hard on them.

I have had the sad experience of feeling the shroud enveloping the community that lost a child. The heartache of everyday activities is soothed by the love of the community that understands the space the family must be given, but also the arm stretched out at just the right time and length to assure the family that they are not alone. One of the most poignant moments of my grandma's life was when a couple reached out to her family after the death of her son, when everyone else around them chose only distance.

I look to my grandma for inspiration when I am conscious that I must adapt. If I didn't have to adapt, I would be heading to Rocky River this July to visit my parents. But instead, I have the honor of presenting at the Rocky River Public Library. I am looking forward to the evening with great anticipation. It will be a genealogy discussion similar to the presentation I gave in Needham, MA in January. I am a bit overwhelmed - in a positive way - at the prospect of presenting my genealogy journey and my book at the library that helped foster my love of reading. If you are in the Rocky River area, I hope you will come! If you are busy that day, you will soon be able to check my book out from the library. And I hope my donated books will be given book plates in memory of Jack and Peg McCarthy, who will be at the presentation in their own, special way.

Author Visit: "Are You Ready to Find Your Family Story?" Wednesday, July 23rd, 7:00pm, Rocky River Public Library Community Room

If you would like to support the MIT community and survivors and families who lost loved ones in the Boston Marathon bombing, here are some great sites:

• MIT Strong : Support the whole team running this year's Boston Marathon or direct your donation to my friend, Dava Newman, by clicking her name in the right margin.
• One Fund Boston
• Kenny Chesney's Spread the Love Fund